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Infectious diseases spur new insurance cover
Infectious diseases spur new insurance cover
By Jeremy Au Yong
The Straits Times
Publication Date: 30-07-2006
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http://www.asianewsnet.net/biz.php?aid=3528
Call it a sign of the times but you can now insure yourself against dengue fever, bird flu and Sars.
Some 1,500 people have already done so - signing up for NTUC Income's new Personal Accident+Infectious Diseases insurance plan.
As its name indicates, it covers accidents as well as infectious diseases - 14 of them - ranging from the well-known dengue, to the less common mad cow disease, and the supposedly extinct plague.
Protection from these diseases does not require a lot of money. The cheapest plan has premiums of just 30 cents a day. What makes this cover different from your everyday MediShield-linked ones is that it takes care of outpatient and temporary disability on top of hospitalisation costs.
For example, should a policyholder be unfortunate enough to come down with dengue, the plan will cover both his inpatient and outpatient treatment. If the dengue gets so severe as to keep him out of action for a week, he would be able to claim anywhere between S$50 (US$31.68) and S$200 (US$126.72) a day for loss of income, depending on his premium.
With the current bird flu paranoia setting in, the plan may sound timely but financial planners warn it may not be for everyone. For one thing, they said that any personal accident plan, with or without cover for infectious diseases, is already a rather restricted plan.
Said Patrick Lim, an associate director of financial advisory firm PromiseLand Independent: "What are the odds of getting into an accident? Most of the time, when you enter hospital, it's because of an illness."
So while adding cover for infectious diseases does broaden the scope of traditional personal accident plans, it does so ever so slightly. At the heart of the matter is that the odds of contracting an infectious disease are minuscule.
Last year, when Singapore was hit with one of the worst dengue epidemics, some 14,000 caught the bug. In a country of four million, that translates to less than a four in 1,000 chance of catching it. With bird flu or mad cow disease, the numbers shrink further.
And that is even before taking into account NTUC Income's big exclusion: epidemics and pandemics. Once a disease is classified as either one by the Government or by the World Health Organisation, the cover stops.
Said NTUC Income general manager Freddy Neo: "The objective of the plan is to cover these infectious diseases under normal circumstances. A disease is excluded only when the situation becomes catastrophic." He pointed out that no epidemic was announced during the Sars outbreak in 2003.
But financial planners do note that the improbability of claiming is reflected in the low premiums.
Mervyn Goh, a principal partner at First Principal Financial, considers the less-than-$1-a-day plans "not overpriced". He had calculated that the personal accident component made up 60 per cent of the premium while the infectious disease cover made up the rest.
Still, Eddy Cheong, an insurance specialist with financial advisory firm Providend, said he would recommend the plan only to those who already have basic cover, or travel frequently and are more at risk.
This would include Linus Wee, a 28-year-old who works in a finance company. He already had seven or eight different insurance plans before he bought the NTUC Income one.
"There seems quite a bit of concern over all these diseases and I was looking for a personal accident plan so this looked like good value," he said.
The plan so far appears unique to NTUC Income with the likes of AIA, AXA and Prudential not offering anything similar. It is not the first unusual plan from the nation's largest insurer. In the past, it has offered pet insurance as well as a plan that covers operations that require stem-cell transplants.
Neo explained the rationale behind the new plan: "As a cooperative society, NTUC Income constantly comes up with policies to cater to the needs of our community. This policy was launched in response to emerging infectious diseases and terrorism that have become real and recent threats to our highly mobile and closely interconnected world."
As with any insurance, planners stress the bottom line is for the consumer to weigh the cost and the benefit. Said Goh: "Coverage for anything is good to have. Once all the caveats are highlighted, people need to decide for themselves if what they are paying is worth the cover they are getting."
By Jeremy Au Yong
The Straits Times
Publication Date: 30-07-2006
Print Article Email Article
http://www.asianewsnet.net/biz.php?aid=3528
Call it a sign of the times but you can now insure yourself against dengue fever, bird flu and Sars.
Some 1,500 people have already done so - signing up for NTUC Income's new Personal Accident+Infectious Diseases insurance plan.
As its name indicates, it covers accidents as well as infectious diseases - 14 of them - ranging from the well-known dengue, to the less common mad cow disease, and the supposedly extinct plague.
Protection from these diseases does not require a lot of money. The cheapest plan has premiums of just 30 cents a day. What makes this cover different from your everyday MediShield-linked ones is that it takes care of outpatient and temporary disability on top of hospitalisation costs.
For example, should a policyholder be unfortunate enough to come down with dengue, the plan will cover both his inpatient and outpatient treatment. If the dengue gets so severe as to keep him out of action for a week, he would be able to claim anywhere between S$50 (US$31.68) and S$200 (US$126.72) a day for loss of income, depending on his premium.
With the current bird flu paranoia setting in, the plan may sound timely but financial planners warn it may not be for everyone. For one thing, they said that any personal accident plan, with or without cover for infectious diseases, is already a rather restricted plan.
Said Patrick Lim, an associate director of financial advisory firm PromiseLand Independent: "What are the odds of getting into an accident? Most of the time, when you enter hospital, it's because of an illness."
So while adding cover for infectious diseases does broaden the scope of traditional personal accident plans, it does so ever so slightly. At the heart of the matter is that the odds of contracting an infectious disease are minuscule.
Last year, when Singapore was hit with one of the worst dengue epidemics, some 14,000 caught the bug. In a country of four million, that translates to less than a four in 1,000 chance of catching it. With bird flu or mad cow disease, the numbers shrink further.
And that is even before taking into account NTUC Income's big exclusion: epidemics and pandemics. Once a disease is classified as either one by the Government or by the World Health Organisation, the cover stops.
Said NTUC Income general manager Freddy Neo: "The objective of the plan is to cover these infectious diseases under normal circumstances. A disease is excluded only when the situation becomes catastrophic." He pointed out that no epidemic was announced during the Sars outbreak in 2003.
But financial planners do note that the improbability of claiming is reflected in the low premiums.
Mervyn Goh, a principal partner at First Principal Financial, considers the less-than-$1-a-day plans "not overpriced". He had calculated that the personal accident component made up 60 per cent of the premium while the infectious disease cover made up the rest.
Still, Eddy Cheong, an insurance specialist with financial advisory firm Providend, said he would recommend the plan only to those who already have basic cover, or travel frequently and are more at risk.
This would include Linus Wee, a 28-year-old who works in a finance company. He already had seven or eight different insurance plans before he bought the NTUC Income one.
"There seems quite a bit of concern over all these diseases and I was looking for a personal accident plan so this looked like good value," he said.
The plan so far appears unique to NTUC Income with the likes of AIA, AXA and Prudential not offering anything similar. It is not the first unusual plan from the nation's largest insurer. In the past, it has offered pet insurance as well as a plan that covers operations that require stem-cell transplants.
Neo explained the rationale behind the new plan: "As a cooperative society, NTUC Income constantly comes up with policies to cater to the needs of our community. This policy was launched in response to emerging infectious diseases and terrorism that have become real and recent threats to our highly mobile and closely interconnected world."
As with any insurance, planners stress the bottom line is for the consumer to weigh the cost and the benefit. Said Goh: "Coverage for anything is good to have. Once all the caveats are highlighted, people need to decide for themselves if what they are paying is worth the cover they are getting."
By Jeremy Au Yong
The Straits Times
Publication Date: 30-07-2006
Print Article Email Article
http://www.asianewsnet.net/biz.php?aid=3528
Call it a sign of the times but you can now insure yourself against dengue fever, bird flu and Sars.
Some 1,500 people have already done so - signing up for NTUC Income's new Personal Accident+Infectious Diseases insurance plan.
As its name indicates, it covers accidents as well as infectious diseases - 14 of them - ranging from the well-known dengue, to the less common mad cow disease, and the supposedly extinct plague.
Protection from these diseases does not require a lot of money. The cheapest plan has premiums of just 30 cents a day. What makes this cover different from your everyday MediShield-linked ones is that it takes care of outpatient and temporary disability on top of hospitalisation costs.
For example, should a policyholder be unfortunate enough to come down with dengue, the plan will cover both his inpatient and outpatient treatment. If the dengue gets so severe as to keep him out of action for a week, he would be able to claim anywhere between S$50 (US$31.68) and S$200 (US$126.72) a day for loss of income, depending on his premium.
With the current bird flu paranoia setting in, the plan may sound timely but financial planners warn it may not be for everyone. For one thing, they said that any personal accident plan, with or without cover for infectious diseases, is already a rather restricted plan.
Said Patrick Lim, an associate director of financial advisory firm PromiseLand Independent: "What are the odds of getting into an accident? Most of the time, when you enter hospital, it's because of an illness."
So while adding cover for infectious diseases does broaden the scope of traditional personal accident plans, it does so ever so slightly. At the heart of the matter is that the odds of contracting an infectious disease are minuscule.
Last year, when Singapore was hit with one of the worst dengue epidemics, some 14,000 caught the bug. In a country of four million, that translates to less than a four in 1,000 chance of catching it. With bird flu or mad cow disease, the numbers shrink further.
And that is even before taking into account NTUC Income's big exclusion: epidemics and pandemics. Once a disease is classified as either one by the Government or by the World Health Organisation, the cover stops.
Said NTUC Income general manager Freddy Neo: "The objective of the plan is to cover these infectious diseases under normal circumstances. A disease is excluded only when the situation becomes catastrophic." He pointed out that no epidemic was announced during the Sars outbreak in 2003.
But financial planners do note that the improbability of claiming is reflected in the low premiums.
Mervyn Goh, a principal partner at First Principal Financial, considers the less-than-$1-a-day plans "not overpriced". He had calculated that the personal accident component made up 60 per cent of the premium while the infectious disease cover made up the rest.
Still, Eddy Cheong, an insurance specialist with financial advisory firm Providend, said he would recommend the plan only to those who already have basic cover, or travel frequently and are more at risk.
This would include Linus Wee, a 28-year-old who works in a finance company. He already had seven or eight different insurance plans before he bought the NTUC Income one.
"There seems quite a bit of concern over all these diseases and I was looking for a personal accident plan so this looked like good value," he said.
The plan so far appears unique to NTUC Income with the likes of AIA, AXA and Prudential not offering anything similar. It is not the first unusual plan from the nation's largest insurer. In the past, it has offered pet insurance as well as a plan that covers operations that require stem-cell transplants.
Neo explained the rationale behind the new plan: "As a cooperative society, NTUC Income constantly comes up with policies to cater to the needs of our community. This policy was launched in response to emerging infectious diseases and terrorism that have become real and recent threats to our highly mobile and closely interconnected world."
As with any insurance, planners stress the bottom line is for the consumer to weigh the cost and the benefit. Said Goh: "Coverage for anything is good to have. Once all the caveats are highlighted, people need to decide for themselves if what they are paying is worth the cover they are getting."
By Jeremy Au Yong
The Straits Times
Publication Date: 30-07-2006
Print Article Email Article
http://www.asianewsnet.net/biz.php?aid=3528
Call it a sign of the times but you can now insure yourself against dengue fever, bird flu and Sars.
Some 1,500 people have already done so - signing up for NTUC Income's new Personal Accident+Infectious Diseases insurance plan.
As its name indicates, it covers accidents as well as infectious diseases - 14 of them - ranging from the well-known dengue, to the less common mad cow disease, and the supposedly extinct plague.
Protection from these diseases does not require a lot of money. The cheapest plan has premiums of just 30 cents a day. What makes this cover different from your everyday MediShield-linked ones is that it takes care of outpatient and temporary disability on top of hospitalisation costs.
For example, should a policyholder be unfortunate enough to come down with dengue, the plan will cover both his inpatient and outpatient treatment. If the dengue gets so severe as to keep him out of action for a week, he would be able to claim anywhere between S$50 (US$31.68) and S$200 (US$126.72) a day for loss of income, depending on his premium.
With the current bird flu paranoia setting in, the plan may sound timely but financial planners warn it may not be for everyone. For one thing, they said that any personal accident plan, with or without cover for infectious diseases, is already a rather restricted plan.
Said Patrick Lim, an associate director of financial advisory firm PromiseLand Independent: "What are the odds of getting into an accident? Most of the time, when you enter hospital, it's because of an illness."
So while adding cover for infectious diseases does broaden the scope of traditional personal accident plans, it does so ever so slightly. At the heart of the matter is that the odds of contracting an infectious disease are minuscule.
Last year, when Singapore was hit with one of the worst dengue epidemics, some 14,000 caught the bug. In a country of four million, that translates to less than a four in 1,000 chance of catching it. With bird flu or mad cow disease, the numbers shrink further.
And that is even before taking into account NTUC Income's big exclusion: epidemics and pandemics. Once a disease is classified as either one by the Government or by the World Health Organisation, the cover stops.
Said NTUC Income general manager Freddy Neo: "The objective of the plan is to cover these infectious diseases under normal circumstances. A disease is excluded only when the situation becomes catastrophic." He pointed out that no epidemic was announced during the Sars outbreak in 2003.
But financial planners do note that the improbability of claiming is reflected in the low premiums.
Mervyn Goh, a principal partner at First Principal Financial, considers the less-than-$1-a-day plans "not overpriced". He had calculated that the personal accident component made up 60 per cent of the premium while the infectious disease cover made up the rest.
Still, Eddy Cheong, an insurance specialist with financial advisory firm Providend, said he would recommend the plan only to those who already have basic cover, or travel frequently and are more at risk.
This would include Linus Wee, a 28-year-old who works in a finance company. He already had seven or eight different insurance plans before he bought the NTUC Income one.
"There seems quite a bit of concern over all these diseases and I was looking for a personal accident plan so this looked like good value," he said.
The plan so far appears unique to NTUC Income with the likes of AIA, AXA and Prudential not offering anything similar. It is not the first unusual plan from the nation's largest insurer. In the past, it has offered pet insurance as well as a plan that covers operations that require stem-cell transplants.
Neo explained the rationale behind the new plan: "As a cooperative society, NTUC Income constantly comes up with policies to cater to the needs of our community. This policy was launched in response to emerging infectious diseases and terrorism that have become real and recent threats to our highly mobile and closely interconnected world."
As with any insurance, planners stress the bottom line is for the consumer to weigh the cost and the benefit. Said Goh: "Coverage for anything is good to have. Once all the caveats are highlighted, people need to decide for themselves if what they are paying is worth the cover they are getting."