Financial Focus

Fresh from the oven?. this term plan which covers till age 75 pays out in tiers, based on severity of the medical condition / critical illness.

Key differences are that:

1) In the case of Major Cancers, Early-Payout CriticalCare will provide a payout upon the diagnosis of Carcinoma-in-Situ (Stage 0 of Cancer) across 15 body sites.

2) Multiple claims across critical illnesses or progressive claims of the same critical illness without any waiting period are allowed.

Details can be found in www.lifeisgreat.com. My take?

Priority should always be on the coverage of your hospital and surgical plan, as well as a disability income cover. Major illness cover comes a quick second, especially if disability income cover is absent.

For a comparison between GE & Pru's plans, read the archived insurance articles in www.imsavvy.sg dated on 12 April 09 which were published in The Sunday Times. A correction is need though?.

Stated as a negative against the Early-Payout CriticalCare in the article ? " There is a limit of a one-time claim entitlement for each severity level of the same critical illness. Once a claim is admitted, no future claims can be made under the same or lower severity level of the same illness."

This is incorrect. For a $200K cover, the first low severity claim is limited to $25K, a second and final low severity claim of $25K is also admissible because low severity claims can be at most up to 25% of the total cover.