In today’s world, life expectancy has been increasing with every passing day due to improvements in the medical field. Despite these improvements and developments in modern medicine, the likelihood of facing a serious disease once our close ones or we reach a certain age becomes very high. Older age comes with increased susceptibility to one of the major diseases, which can severely affect the patient’s quality of life. Having a critical illness insurance safeguard against this eventuality, and helps to keep the quality of life maintained for those who are suffering from such a critical illness.
When you are looking for the best critical illness insurance Singapore, there are a few points that need to be considered carefully.
Check out the maximum age allowed
Different critical illness insurance plans have a different cut off ages for senior candidates. Before you decide on a particular plan, make sure your parents are aged below the cutoff age for that particular plan. Most plans have a cut off age of 70 years in Singapore, so if you are looking to get critical care insurance for your patents, make sure the application process is completed before they turn 70.
In case your parents have already turned 70, the situation becomes a bit trickier. They will not be qualified for those plans that have a cut-off age at 70, so they won’t be able to apply for them. You have to find an alternative agency or plan which has the provisions for a higher cut off age than 70.
Be mindful of pre-existing conditions
One of the most important factors that affect qualifying for critical illness insurance is whether or not your elderly parents are suffering from any pre-existing major medical conditions. This also has a large effect on the insurance premiums, as those candidates with no pre-existing medical conditions can usually get the critical illness insurance for low premiums. On the other hand, if your parents are already suffering from a major medical condition, it can be difficult to qualify for critical illness insurance. In those policies which do allow such candidates, the premium rate is usually much higher.
This principle is based on the fact that those patients, who are suffering from long-standing chronic health conditions, have to stay continuously under medical supervision, and take regular medicines. Such patients are also at risk of suffering from other major diseases such as a heart attack or stroke shortly. The costs involved in managing these medical conditions are very high, and the costs are only likely to go up with every passing day. This makes such patients difficult to be covered under a critical illness insurance policy.
Common pre-existing chronic conditions include diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis. Such conditions affect the quality of life of the patient even before getting critical illness insurance, and they are likely to affect the policy holder’s health soon heavily. However, even for those patients, certain select policies cater to patients suffering from a particular pre-existing condition.
Choose between single pay and multi-pay options
When it comes to critical illness insurances, there are two broad types to choose from, the single payment and the multi-pay types. The single-pay critical illness insurance does exactly what its name suggests, provides a one-time lump sum payment to the policyholder. This type of plan is ideal for covering the medical costs for one-time large expense treatments, and to cover costs while recovering from a major medical condition. Once the lump sum payment is made, the policy validity ends, and the policyholder is no longer under the coverage of the insurance plan.
The multi-pay type of insurance, on the other hand, provides the multiple packet payments to the patient party. It helps to cover costs during multiple episodes of a disease and is ideal for those who are suffering from a chronic condition. The amount of each payment varies according to which disease the patient is suffering from.
Be informed about the early-stage and late-stage coverage
Every critical disease has a different type of progression. Some diseases have a prolonged course, that increases over a while and require more and more medical coverage. On the other hand, certain diseases have a one-time acute stage that needs medical attention. Most of the diseases which have a progressive course are familial on the origin, and they usually have a history of previous occurrences in the family. For such diseases, it is best to get an early-stage plan that helps to provide packet payments that cover the disease’s medical costs from the early onset itself. On the other hand, general critical illness insurance plans are mainly for late-stage coverage, as they provide a one-time lump sum payment, which is designed to cover the medical costs during the advanced phase of the disease when medical attention is required.
Make sure the plan is affordable
While medical expenses of major diseases are high, it is also prudent to make sure that you do not pick a critical illness insurance plan with premiums above your affordability. This only results in you getting burdened with excess payments on a yearly/monthly basis, which you cannot afford. It negates the financial helping effect which such insurance plans have on medical expenses for critical diseases.
To get the best deal contact the HL Assurance Singapore today. Out of the different types of plans available in HL, one-time payment plans are usually more affordable and have lower premiums. However, if you are looking to go for a continuous coverage plan, it is still possible to find many options that are within your budget.
To Sum It Up
With increasing age, all of us suffer from different health conditions. There are very few things that we can do to avoid this, apart from living a healthy lifestyle. However, by having critical illness insurance, we can make sure that we are not financially burdened if and when such a critical disease afflicts our loved ones.
