How do I determine the amount of coverage to get for multipay critical illness insurance?

multi-pay critical illness plans typically come with higher premiums and a more complex set of terms and conditions.

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you buy liao may be denied 100% payout or lesser

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you must be very sure of the clauses

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agents are pushing to sell multi-pay ci due to the commissions from the high premiums you will be paying

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do your due diligence

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To ensure the size of the payout is appropriate, you should consider the following factors:

• your hospital bills have been covered: if you only have government hospital bills coverage, or partial coverage of hospital bills, you have to take some money from the payout to cover the co-payment costs (this is usually zero if you have hospital plan plus full coverage riders; you may need to set aside $15k onwards if you only have MediShield Life)

• additional treatment bills: alternative treatment and additional medicines and appliances may exceed your hospitalisation coverage, hence you need the payout for this (this can range from $50k to $100k normally, and can be higher is you go for premium treatment methods)

• caregiving costs: would you need to hire a helper, or engage someone to upkeep things in the house? (typical costs $1,500/month to pay for stay-in helper without government subsidies; amount is higher if you prefer home visit nurses)

• income replacement: the money you need to cover daily expenses during the time you cannot work due to illnesses (depends on how much you're spending now, with corrections on how your expenses will change in the event of CI)

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Just a side note, instead of getting multi-pay CI, I got a few CI plans with varying sum assured. Then depending on the severity of the CI, I'll claim from various policies. However, this option is more expensive compared to multi-pay CI plans. I plan it this way for myself because I prefer to have limited payment term for my CI coverage. :)