Interesting Bites

1 1/2 years ago, I was an insurance agent with Prudential Malaysia.  Back then, they had this thing called “Prudential Formula One” financing scheme.  The scheme paid me ’salary’ each month for 12 months while I was struggling to be a star insurance agent.  Naturally, it was not my cup of tea & I left in just 3 months.

In those few months, I learnt a lot about insurance & began to start evaluating my own insurance policies.  There are many different types of insurance you could buy for yourself depending on your need & budget.  In my personal opinion (I bear no responsibility if you take these are gospel truth), these are the types that you should buy according to priority :-

• Medical Card
  Theoritically, a medical card annual premium increases with age.  However you can buy investment-linked policies so that the additional premium that you pay when you are younger will offset the increase as you age.
• Critical Illness (component)
  These days, its expensive being sick.  So you want to make sure that you get a proper coverage in case of Critical Illness
• Life Insurance (stand alone / component)
  This is paid out when policy holder pass away 
• Investment Linked Policy
  These are policies that (can) include Medical Card benefits, life insurance, critical illnesses benefits …. err… can’t remember all. :)  Very important to note, do not treat this as an investment engine.  Some insurance agents can misled you about this.  One key point to remember : Insurance is Insurance.
• Personal Accident
  With the high accident & fatality rate, personal accident policy is a good buy.  It would probably cost you a few hundred per year (RM100++ or so) for a coverage as huge as a few hundred thousands.  The premium depends on your risk factors - the insurance agent should explain this to you. 

There is a whole lot more that I probably am not aware of now.  But I have to emphasize that the most important insurance that you MUST have is a MEDICAL CARD.  And this is also the one that I want to buy right now.  As I’ve mentioned above, it can be a very expensive affair to fall sick these days.  Even a dengue (very common) can cost up to RM5,000 (a friend’s mother recent experience) in a private facility. 

If you are perfectly healthy right now, my advice is for you to speak to an insurance agent right now.  He/She should give you an insight on the importance of insurance.

By the way, anyone with an insurance agent to recommend?  (I’m interested in evaluating AIA, ING, Prudential  & Great Eastern)