facebookHow should I (28F) plan my insurance? I currently only have the NTUC Enhanced Shield Plan (Hospitalisation), so have gaps in my Life and CI coverage. Recently bought a condo (BUC) with my family? - Seedly

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Anonymous

19 Sep 2020

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Insurance

How should I (28F) plan my insurance? I currently only have the NTUC Enhanced Shield Plan (Hospitalisation), so have gaps in my Life and CI coverage. Recently bought a condo (BUC) with my family?

I'm single 28F. Marriage and kids are not in the books, at least for the next 5 years. I only have a ISP coverage, so right now I need to look at Life, CI and a mortgage cover for my new (investment) condo.

Spoke to AIA, Prudential and NTUC agents -
Option A: Term 1.4mil (cover condo+5x annual income) until 75 + whole life (+ECI)
Option B: Term 800k (cover condo loan only) for 30 years + whole life (+ECI)

I'm completely new to this. How do I determine how much coverage is enough or too much?

Discussion (3)

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Elijah Lee

19 Sep 2020

Senior Financial Services Manager at Phillip Securities (Jurong East)

Hi anon,

If you only have ISP coverage, then you need to consider CI and death/TPD coverage (for the house).

For death and TPD, you should at least cover the mortgage loan, but you may want to get additional coverage to also include the loss of income to your family if you are no longer around. One thing to note is that buying $1 million of death/TPD coverage is actually cheaper than 2 x $500K plans. Due to this, a $1 million term plan might even be almost the same cost as a $800K term plan, so you should definitely at least consider $1 million death/TPD coverage. If you also wish to protect your income then you can consider a bit more, such as $1.5 million death/TPD cover. Note that given your age, term plans are really cheap so it may be viable to cover $1.5 million and the absolute increase in the cost should not be a lot.

Next thing is to consider when your liabilities end. This should determine how long your term plan will need to run (at least). So, if your loan ends in 30 years, a 30 year term plan or a term plan till 60 (allowing for some buffer) may be a reasonable option. A term plan till 75 might be overkill in my view, since your coverage needs probably end by age 60, 65 maximum. Hope this helps you get some clarity.

For Critical Illness, the idea is to ensure that you will still have funds to continue your expenses (we're talking about core expenses here) should you become critically ill and unable to work. Money also needs to be provided at all stages of your life for alternative treatment, out of pocket costs, etc. In this scenario, I prefer to focus on ensuring that you can cover at least 5 years of your expenses (again, core expenses, including mortgage repayments, but not things like holidays), plus maybe $100K for out of pocket costs. Without much data on your expenses, my best guess is that $300K onwards of CI coverage is probably a number that you would want to look at. A limited payment whole life plan with a multiplier will likely suit such a situation.

You may wish to consider looking at term plans from other insurers as death/TPD is a very straight forward claim and thus you should look at the cheapest insurer (which is probably another insurer such as Aviva/TokioMarine/China Taiping/Manulife based on my experience).

For critical illness, again, you may wish to consider other insurers, but this is slightly less straightforward as no two whole life CI plans are the same. For example, the number of covered conditions differ from insurer to insurer (some insurers cover more than 50 conditions), some plans will pay out the reversionary and terminal bonus on top of the multiplier payout, and of course, premiums differ between insurers. Based on your profile, Aviva or China Taiping plans may provide the best features at a very competitive price point.

Thus in summary, you will probably want $1 - $1.5 million of death/TPD cover, till at least 60, and a limited payment whole life plan with $300K of CI cover at least.

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