Insurance Agency Singapore | Commercial Insurance and Personal Insurance

To help you out, here’s shortlisted some points to consider to make your insurance-buying decision easier. Hopefully, these will help you shortlist a good health plan.

Opt for adequate and comprehensive coverage: With rising competition, insurers are offering a wide range of features in a single health insurance plan. Along with a hospitalization cover, insurers can also cover critical illness, pre- and post-hospitalisation expenses, OPD expenses, and much more. Opting for a comprehensive plan with adequate sum assured is important while making health insurance decisions. So don’t just go by premium costs while finalizing your plan. Also compare all other features and get the best possible coverage at a price you can easily pay. Also, keep increasing your coverage limit from time to time to take care of the healthcare inflation.

Go for plans with wider network: Insurers network with hospitals around the country. At the hospitals networked with your insurer, you can avail cashless facility where claims are settled conveniently with little hassle or paperwork. Outside the network you must settle your bills out of your own pocket before filing out the paperwork to make a claim with your insurer. Hence it’s advisable to have a health plan that offers you the best possible hospital coverage, especially coverage in the city you currently live in.

Look at pre- and post-hospitalisation costs: A typical hospitalisation is preceded and succeeded by several tests and consultations. Many health plans can cover these expenses to a specified limit. For example, one well-known insurer covers 30 days of pre-hospitalisation expenses and 90 days post. These costs can be significant, therefore having this cover will help you reduce your out-of-pocket expenses during the treatment.

Read through co-payment clause: The insurer offers you an option of co-payment, wherein you will have to settle a pre-decided percentage of your medical bills yourself. Sometimes, the clause is specific to particular treatments/ailments only. For instance, you have a health plan which has a 20% co-pay clause, and if your claim amount is Rs. 80,000, then you would be liable to bear Rs.16,000 (20% 0f 80,000) while the rest will be settled by your insurer. A higher co-pay means lower premiums. If you are young and healthy with no medical history, you could consider a higher co-pay and thus save on premium costs.

See full story at www.moneycontrol.com

Use these tips to shop and compare health plans for you and your family:

Tip #1: Know what coverage you already have

As the health care debate thundered away in Washington, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah stirred up a social media squall the other day by suggesting that uninsured Americans should invest in their own health care “rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love.”

Here in Mr. Chaffetz’s solidly Republican district, one of those uninsured Americans watched the viral CNN interview on — what else? — her cellphone. Not a new iPhone, though, but a Samsung with a cracked screen, one that Shari Hunter and her husband, Anthony, bought with their tax refunds two years ago.

“An iPhone and insurance are not the same thing at all,” Ms. Hunter, 32, said. “If you need to be able to decide between an iPhone and health insurance, you need to look at: Why is that the choice?”

To Mr. Chaffetz’s supporters, his comments sounded like a tough-love defense of individual responsibility in the midst of a knockdown debate over the government’s role in providing health care to Americans. To his critics, they sounded like a callous and obtuse dismissal of the hard choices that struggling families face every day — and one that echoed earlier, racially noxious arguments over “welfare queens” and criticisms of programs that helped provide phone service to poor people.

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The Hunters have thought plenty about trying to cut out the $100 they spend on cellphone service every month. Yes, they said, it’s a lot, especially when they don’t have health insurance and they stretch the last dollars from their $1,800 monthly income to buy diapers and gasoline.

But the cellphone tethers the couple together when Mr. Hunter leaves for his nearly $13-an-hour job at a call center and Ms. Hunter stays home with their three children — 9, 4 and 3 years old — here in the Utah Valley. They chat on his 15-minute breaks. It pains Mr. Hunter to be away from the children, so Ms. Hunter texts him photos of them making a snowman or playing on the backyard swing set. He sends her inspirational quotes from elders in the Mormon Church, to which they are both devoted.

The Hunters said they voted for Mr. Chaffetz in November, but Mr. Hunter said his comment sounded like something a “well-off person” would say — not a parent receiving food stamps, whose children are covered by Medicaid and who usually has $86 left over after paying the month’s mortgage and other bills.

Here in the heavily Mormon cities that run along the snow-glazed Wasatch Range, several of Mr. Chaffetz’s uninsured constituents said that, of course, they would love to be rid of the cellphone bills that cost their families $30, $50, $100 every month. But they said the savings would hardly be enough to afford monthly health plans for their families.

And how would they get by without their phones?

“A cellphone is a lifeline,” said Myla Dutton, executive director of Community Action Provo, a food bank and social-service nonprofit.

Jose Valdivia, 61, said he wouldn’t be able to quickly look up the latest engine modifications when he was repairing sport-utility vehicles at the mechanic’s shop where he works. His wife said they wouldn’t be able to send photos to relatives in Mexico City.

The couple spoke as they waited for an appointment at a free health clinic run by volunteer nurses and doctors two nights a week in Provo. Not surprisingly, smartphones abounded in the waiting room. People texted about dinner, called relatives with updates, held their children’s attention with a game.

Without her phone, Joana Delacruz, 45, said, she wouldn’t be able to see job postings from nursing employers, or check whether she should bring home some food for her 18-year-old son after finishing her 3-11 p.m. shifts managing a McDonald’s in Provo.

By JACK HEALY

See full story at www.nytimes.com

The main three problems with health care and health insurance are uncontrollable costs, lack of coverage, and fragmentation of the market.  The two key solutions are tax deductibility and federal regulation of commerce among the various states.

Costs are uncontrollable for several reasons: consumers are largely isolated from the cost of the health care products and services they use.  Deductibles place the entire burden of a cost on the consumer who has no ability to negotiate.  Co-pays are fixed and do not give consumers an incentive to look for cheaper policies, products, or services.  A growing number of consumers are also not insured through an employer and individually have no negotiating leverage.  When costs are not being controlled, the health care industry has perverse incentives to concentrate on more expensive products and services.

These problems can all be addressed by making consumers responsible for costs by removing employers as intermediaries and extending tax deductibility to individuals.  In addition, policies should make co-pays a percentage of the covered costs so consumers see directly what the products and services cost and will collectively shop for the most cost-effective alternatives.

Deductibility for individuals and customer cost-control also addresses the problem of lack of coverage: instead of forcing people to purchase something or face a punitive tax, it incentivizes them to buy insurance instead of paying taxes over that part of their income.  It works for home purchases, so it should work for insurance purchases by responsible, productive individuals.  (The same should be done for properly federally accredited education, by the way.)

By Bart Besseling

See full story at www.americanthinker.com

Choose a suitable health insurance policy to cover your child’s needs and manage rising medical costs

Getting adequate and comprehensive health insurance for your child is your best bet to hedge against increasing medical costs, according to Ms Wendy Soong, an executive financial consultant with NTUC Income. She suggests considering the following points before shopping for a policy.

Tips to choose a health insurance policy for your child

Assess your current financial and medical situation

Medisave funds can be used to pay the annual premiums of basic health insurance or the government-approved Integrated Shield Plans only. All other insurance plans must be paid in cash.

How much you pay depends on your child’s age, the age of both parents, the sum assured, and the payment terms and period. How much insurance to buy depends on your desired lifestyle, expectations, affordability and objectives.

Review your family’s medical history. If there is a strong history of cancer, it is better to buy medical insurance for a child when he is as young as possible to lock in his insurability and serve as a back-up.

Choose your insurance plan and hospital ward class wisely

If you choose a plan that only allows your child to stay in a Class B ward but you upgrade him to a Class A ward, your bill will be subjected to proration and you’ll need to pay a higher deductible.

However, if you take a higher plan but downgrade hospital wards, some Integrated Shield Plans even offer you a cash benefit in return.

Lock in your insurability

If your child has no pre-existing health conditions, he will not face any insurability issues. But if he unexpectedly develops a condition during his growing years, that medical history will follow him for the rest of his life, making it difficult for him to get life insurance with critical illness coverage in future. If he needs surgery, hospitalisation bills can eat into your savings. So, it is essential to start with comprehensive insurance coverage while children are young and not leave it to chance.

It is best to buy medical insurance for children about a month after they are born, once the birth certificate is obtained. This locks in their insurability while they are healthy.

By: Stella Thng

See full story at www.healthxchange.com.sg