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Getting private healthcare in Malaysia is expensive—but you can alleviate this burden by getting insurance. There are many types of insurance plans to choose from though. What kind of insurance should you take?
Before you decide, let’s understand the difference between critical illness (CI) insurance and medical insurance.
Critical illness insurance: Provides financial support when you’re diagnosed with pre-defined critical illnesses prevalent among Malaysians. It provides a lump sum payout to you upon your diagnosis. The illnesses usually covered are cancer, heart attack, stroke and many others.
Medical insurance: Covers how much you’ll have to pay for treatment and medication if you get hospitalised. This might include expenses such as pathology costs, ICU charges and day care treatments.
How will the money be used?
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Critical illness insurance: The lump sum payout you get can be used for anything you want. Your health insurance will pay for your medical expenses, but CI insurance will assist you with living expenses during your recovery, and other non-medical related costs, such as lifestyle adjustments, alternative treatments and loss of income. Basically, you can use the payout for anything that your medical insurance does not cover.
Medical insurance: It pays specifically for your medical treatment or hospitalisation. For instance, you’re hospitalised because of a surgery. You’ll make a claim to your insurer and they’ll settle the hospital bill or reimburse you.
When do I get my payout?
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Critical illness insurance: You’ll receive your lump sum payout directly upon diagnosis. Remember to look out for plans that allow you to make multiple claims when choosing your policy.
Medical insurance: You won’t receive any payout or money—it’ll go to the hospital to cover your treatment and other medical expenses.
Should I get medical or critical illness insurance?
These two types of insurance aren’t interchangeable, and we highly recommend that you get both as they cover different aspects of protection. While we may be more inclined to consider medical insurance first, do check out CI insurance as well, knowing what it can do for you.
But do I really need it? I’m still young and healthy
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It’s not something that we like to think about, but critical illnesses can happen to anyone indiscriminately. It’ll have an impact, financially and emotionally on you and your loved ones, especially if you’re the breadwinner of your family.
Let’s think of a scenario: you’re a father with a three-year-old son. Your wife is a stay-at-home mother. If a critical illness strikes, there’ll be plenty of duties that she’ll have to shoulder.
If you have to quit your job because of your illness, everyone in your family will have to adjust their lifestyle (you might have to undergo alternative treatment or therapy, make modifications to your house or vehicle for better mobility, your wife might need to get a job to take care of you and your child).
If you prefer visuals, here’s a video for a similar scenario:
CI insurance can help by giving you the financial support for the best care and treatment that you deserve while alleviating the effects on your loved ones.
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These are the things you should find out when choosing a critical illness plan:
- Does the plan allow multiple claims rather than ending once a benefit is paid out?
- Does it re-diagnose prevalent critical illnesses such as cancer, heart attack and stroke?
- Does it provide coverage for all stages of critical illness (early to late conditions)?
PRUMy Critical Care provides you a lump sum payment to you so that you can focus on your recovery without having to worry about day-to-day expenses and unpredictable costs due to lifestyle changes.
The product offers:
C: Comprehensive coverage that allows multiple claims of up to 400% of rider sum assured.
A: Additional Special Benefit coverage on diabetes-related conditions and joint-related conditions.
R: Re-diagnosis of 3 major critical illness coverage for cancer, heart attack and stroke.
E: Early to late stage critical illness coverage.
Find out more by contacting your Prudential agent, or visit the PRUMy Critical Care website.