I increased term + critical illness coverage further with Manulife Skip to main content

I increased term + critical illness coverage further with Manulife

I recently increased my term and critical illness coverage by another $1M and $300k respectively.

I checked around with many providers and ended up with Manulife as it's what I need, without all the bells and whistles. AIA offered total coverage for recurrent illnesses, but I figure if I get the same cancer twice, I'd probably be dead by then. So there's no need to pay a premium for that type of policy. Sometimes plain vanilla is the best.
I also considered disability insurance where they pay you an amount on a monthly basis. While this sounds like a great idea, the insurers will make it difficult for you to claim this, with strange delay clauses and exclusions. It's much cleaner to receive a large lump sum payment and manage it from there.

Why these figures for critical illness? I based it on annual family expenses. Most insurance agents will tell you like 5-10x of your salary, just to get you to buy a bigger policy. An agent that looks out for you will tell you to look at it from an expenses point of view (my agent is a good agent). For example if my annual family expenditure is $100k, then this policy takes care of 3yrs of no pay leave or me not working.

On the term portion, the premium delta between $500k and $1M was $400/yr and it was pretty negligible in the grand scheme of things, so I opted for the higher figure.

Disregarding the SAF group policy, since that's a group term one, I have about $1.4M coverage for death and tpd, $720k for CI of which $150k is ECI. I think this is sufficient for the rest of my working life. I plan for most of the insurance coverage to end by age 65 anyway, as I plan to be financially free and dependant free by then. The integrated shield plans will be enough to cover my medical bills from then onwards.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trade wars, Hong Kong riots

Be greedy in times of fear. That's the investment mantra I live by. Recently there's been a huge spat on trade wars and the Hong Kong riots, which took a toll on the stock markets.  This was a great opportunity to load up on my existing positions as their prices have come down to more favorable levels. There no reason to explore other stocks unless a super attractive opportunity arises, like hongkongland. That counter was hit extremely hard by the riots, since they derive 50% of their revenues from HK.  Other than such events where opportunities present itself, I prefer to average up or down into my existing positions... No need to perform the due diligence again, unless fundamentals have changed. I'm enjoying the opportunities that the markets are presenting in the past few months.  Simply keep calm and aim to collect more dividends by increasing your stake when frivolous sentiment changes. Market entry is a psychological battle against yourself. Another post on this la
Post a Comment
Read more

Baby Bonus, Child Development Account (CDA), CPF

"When I'm old and my memory fails me, this post serves as a reminder on what to do." Every child born as a Singapore citizen is given a Child Development Account (CDA), with the government having the intent of cushioning expenses related to raising a child.  The CDA funds can be used for certain items like paying for childcare and kindergartens, child related medical expenses, medisave approved integrated shield plans.  I use this account for a different purpose, to build my daughters wealth. The only thing that interested me was the Government's Dollar for Dollar match, up to $6k for the 1st and 2nd child. Baby bonus gave us $3k, I topped up $3k , government matched $3k, and the account began with $9k opening balance.  Since I can't withdraw these funds for cash, I'll treat this as a CPF account and optimize every dollar. The CPF website has a nice illustration on what happens with the account through time: https://www.areyouready.sg/YourInfoHub/Pag
Post a Comment
Read more

BCIP 2018 - Singtel, Capitamall trust

I started building my child's college fund when she was 6 months old.  All her 红包's are channeled straight into this OCBC account, and I registered for their Blue Chip Investment Plan (BCIP).  It's a monthly investment scheme into a blue chip stock of choice.  Both Ms EOR and myself contribute monthly to this BCIP account, which is an excellent way to force us to invest. I invest in 2 stocks at any given month, with Singtel being the base investment and the other being a cyclical. Singtel Telco's are considered a defensive sector, with a relatively stable income stream.  What I like about Singtel is that they are the market leader in Singapore, and also derive 50% of their profits from investments in other country telcos, thereby reducing the country risk.  They are trading at around their 52 week lows in 1H 2018, hence the dividend rate is 5+%, but I see the sustainable rate to be about 4+%.  I'm doing dollar cost averaging, so it doesn't matter that much
Post a Comment
Read more