I am Malaysian SPR. Recently I have been thinking to purchase a bit of CI coverage (early, intermediate, late stage of CI). Which plan would best suit to me (Whole life, term, ILP)?

Hi anon,

I would recommend that you take a look at whether you prefer to go with term or whole life.

On term, you have a few options, e.g. multipay, term with CI.

• Multipay would allow you to claim multiple times but the premiums are higher as the probability of multiple claims has been priced in. They also have different claim structure and criteria depending on the plan you are looking at.

• A term with CI would have a single payout upon diagnosis, and is quite straightfoward in terms of payout.

Either way, being a term plan, you would pay yearly till a claim, or the plan ends.

On whole life, you can get a limited pay whole life plan. This covers you for life and will have a booster (multiplier) to increase your coverage in your working years. This multiplier can be x2, x3, etc. As premiums are usually compressed into 20/25 years, it may seem higher on a per year basis, but you also need to consider the total premiums you will pay, keeping in mind that you will retain CI cover for life.

I'd recommend you to take a look at the numbers for both term and Whole Life before you decide what would suit you. However if you include Early CI, a whole life tends to be quite cost efficient. An independent financial advisor can help you to get the information you need from multiple companies so that you can compare across the companies and plans to understand your options and choose something that suits you.

I do not recommend getting your coverage on an ILP. Keep insurance separate from investments.

Hi there. You can refer to these independent comparisons:

https://treeofwealth.sg/early-stage-critical-il...

https://www.interestguru.sg/best-early-critical...

Most importantly, act fast! Some insurers have already changed their CI definitions if you haven't heard - https://blog.seedly.sg/changes-to-critical-illn...

You can reach me here to find out more. I cover 9 major insurers including Aviva, Manulife, Tokio Marine, etc​​​