Singapore Insurance

Prudential, officially known as Prudential plc, is a British multinational life insurance and financial services company. Its history can be traced back to its founding in London in 1848. The company was initially established as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association by Sir John Charles Day. The primary aim of the company was to provide affordable life insurance to the working class. Prudential's innovative approach, focusing on industrial life insurance policies, quickly gained popularity and helped expand its customer base. In the late 19th century, Prudential expanded its operations beyond the United Kingdom. It entered international markets, including the United States, where it established its American subsidiary, Prudential Insurance Company of America, in 1875. This move marked the beginning of Prudential's global expansion and laid the foundation for its future growth and success. Over the years, Prudential continued to evolve and adapt to chang...

Insurance par fund, also known as participating fund or with-profits fund, is a unique investment component offered by insurance companies. It is an attractive option for individuals seeking a balance between insurance coverage and potential investment returns. In this article, we will delve into the concept of insurance par funds, their benefits, considerations, and how they work. What is an Insurance Par Fund? An insurance par fund is a pooled investment fund created by an insurance company using the premiums paid by policyholders. The insurer manages this fund and invests it in various assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate. The returns generated by these investments are shared with the policyholders in the form of bonuses or dividends. Benefits of Insurance Par Fund: Stability and Security: Insurance par funds aim to provide stability and security to policyholders by offering guaranteed minimum bonuses, which help mitigate market fluctuations.Participating in Investment Retu...

Insurance is a form of financial protection that compensates individuals or businesses for unexpected financial losses. The insurance industry offers a wide variety of policies that cover different types of risks and provide different levels of protection. Understanding the different types of insurance is crucial for individuals and businesses to make informed decisions and ensure they have the right coverage in place. In this article, we will discuss the most common types of insurance, including health insurance, life insurance, auto insurance, property insurance, liability insurance, and travel insurance. Health Insurance Health insurance is a type of insurance that covers the cost of medical care. It is one of the most common types of insurance and is often considered essential by many individuals. The main aim of health insurance is to provide financial protection against the high cost of medical care and to ensure that people can access the medical care they need when they need it...

Many people might not know that they can actually buy resale endowment plans from various companies.  This is usually not sold directly from insurers but are instead sold by companies like REPs Holdings which buys endowment plans from people and sell it onward to other people who might wish to purchase these "used" endowment plans.   What is clear is that these plans do not provide any form of insurance as the insured person remains as the original policy owner who bought the plan from the insurer.    After paying it for a few years, the original policy owner probably does not wish to pay the premiums anymore but instead of surrendering it to the insurer, they can sell it to another individual who is willing to take on the premium payments and of course benefit from the final guaranteed/non-guaranteed amounts that come at the maturity of the endowment plan.   The original policy owner benefits since he/she is probably able to get a much higher cash val...

Life Insurance Association will publish guidelines regarding agent recruitment. The rules intend to provide a framework for the recruitment of rival agents by insurers in Singapore and to curb any mis-selling by these new agents who are required to hit their sales target at the new firm. The move comes after the mass migration of 300 or so Great Eastern (GE) insurance agents - nearly 10 per cent of its agency size - to rival AIA's newly set up financial advisory arm, AIA Financial Advisers. What do you do if your insurance agent was one of the GE agents who migrated to AIA? You should take any advice they give on replacing our surrendering any existing insurance policy you have with a great pinch of salt.  Replacing or switching of policies  is rarely beneficial for the insured so be warned. 

TM Protect Cancer is an insurance term plan that provides coverage when one is diagnosed with early or advanced stage cancer. It is designed for adults age between 30 and 65 and provides coverage extending till age 85. The plan provides comprehensive cancer coverage with 50% benefit payout on early detection of coverage. It provides 100% benefit payout on advanced stage cancer diagnosis. The plan is also guaranteed renewable where coverage is guaranteed despite changes to future health condition. Coverage amounts ranges from $50,000 to a maximum of $150,000. The annual premium rate is also pretty affordable with per $1,000 Sum Assured by Age Band as follows:

There are a number of private hospitals in Singapore (hospital swasta di Singapore). Unlike the Government/Restructured hospitals, these private hospitals are more expensive. There are also limits on insurance claims (especially if you have a hospitalisation plan that does not give coverage for the use of private hospitals) when one uses a private hospital. Here is a list of private hospitals in Singapore: Mount Alvernia Gleneagles Mount Elizabeth Raffles Hospital Camden Thomson Medical Centre Farrer Park Hospital Gleneagles is located conveniently just beside the botanical gardens and directly opposite the American embassy. The hospital also has a medical centre block. Carparking can be an issue at times.

So what is the difference between coinsurance and deductible? These two terms will probably pop up when you are thinking of buying a hospitalisation insurance plan (or termed as health insurance in some countries) or what is also known as an integrated shield plan in Singapore. Well, a simple way to understand it is to treat the coinsurance and deductible as money that you will have to pay for your medical bills even though you have insurance coverage. The reasons coinsurance and deductible exists is probably to keep the cost of insurance low and affordable while preventing individuals from exploiting the medical system and the insurance coverage they enjoy. A deductible is similar to what is the known add excess in motor insurance. This basically means the amount of money you will have to pay FIRST before the insurance company allows for any claims. For example, if the deductible is stated as $2000, and your hospital bill is also $2000, you don't get to claim any money since y...

As stated in its benefit illustration, PruWealth is a participating regular premium endowment insurance plan.  Unlike other endowment plans, PruWealth is meant to be long term wealth accumulator that matures only when the life assured turns 100 years old.  That means the plan does not mature in your typical 20 to 30 years that is common in other endowment plans.  Of course, that depends too on the age you are when you purchased the plan. Some interesting features of this endowment plan are as follows: There are various options of premium paying terms ranging from 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years. This basically means it is a limited pay plan where you just need to pay regular premiums for a certain number of years and can stop paying thereafter. Death benefit will always be higher than the amount of premiums put in.  This is typical of any endowment plan so I won't elaborate any further.  Surrender value comprises both guaranteed and non-guaranteed component...

I received a letter from Finexis that said someone from the company will contact me regarding my lapsed AXA FutureProtector.   The matter of fact is this: I was offered FutureProtector free of charge and that was the reason why I took it up. After the free offer from Finexis, AXA apparently lodged a complaint due to the high number of lapse cases and wanted to claim some money back from Finexis. I wonder how this will pan out as I have not intention to continue with the AXA FutureProtector. Maybe they will offer me another free one year trial? =)

Motor insurance losses down It seems like Motor insurance underwriting losses are down for 2009. The underwriting loss for 2009 was $44.5 million compared to the $214 million in 2008. With a lower underwriting loss, consumers can expect a less drastic rise in motor insurance premiums for their cars. Insurance premiums will most probably stabilise and even if they do increase, will be by a lesser quantum compared to the previous year. This news will definitely be welcomed by motorists. A lot however still needs to be done to make sure that the motor insurance claims regulatory framework is closely monitored to ensure that nobody abuses the system.

I finally received a letter from AIA regarding the recent news about Prudential's potential takeover. Dear XXXX, As you have probably seen in the news, AIG has entered into a definitive agreement to sell AIA to Prudential for approximately US$35.5 billion, subject to Prudential's shareholder approval, regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. AIA is a strong and successful organisation today because of our focus on meeting your needs, supported by a dedicated agency force, distributors and professional employees. We understand Prudential and AIG are devoted to preserving the AIA brand and its commitments. We would like to assure you it is business-as-usual for us and our focus will continue to remain on you, our customer. We will continue to provide you with products and services that meet your needs now and into the future. There are no changes to the policies you have with us and all policyholder obligations will be honoured. If you have questions, please do no...

AIG bids farewell to its Asian arm AIA as a takeover by Prudential takes place. British insureer, Prudential, will offer up to US$35 million dollars for AIA. The deal will be settled through cash, paid through a rights issue by Prudential and also through AIG taking a minority stake in the British insurer. Prudential stepped in after AIG announced that it was intending to IPO its Asian arm. Analysts had previously forecasted that the IPO would raise 10 billion dollars. AIG had earlier intended to auction off 49 percent of its Asian arm after the financial crisis but that failed as it did not receive any suitable offers. Prudential will double its size by this deal.

Good news to all Medisave Account holders. Patients can now use Medisave to pay for private care abroad from next month onwards. This is limited to 12 hospitals and medical centres in Malaysia. However, patients will still have to be referred by two Singapore group centres first before they can seek treatment. The treatment has to be day surgery or in-hospital admissons. The two groups are Health Management International and Prakway Holdings. The referral centres for both are situated at Balestier Clinic and Health Screening Centre and East Shore Hospital respectively. This move would give Singaporeans more choice when it comes to seeking medical treatment overseas. The only question now is whether Medishield insurance coverage would also be extended to help pay for the bills overseas.

After certain groups were asking that Medisave be allowed for the detection of breast cancer, Health Minister has responded. I agree with his response and feel that medisave should be indeed kept for a rainy day instead. HEALTH Minister Khaw Boon Wan said on Sunday that he was 'sympathetic' towards the need for women to have mammograms, but said he was concerned about people depleting their Medisave accounts too quickly. Speaking after house visits where he helped distribute food hampers to 260 households in a rental block in Marsiling, he said: 'Don't forget, Medisave was for hospitalisation. It is for sick people - in fact, very sick people, who have bills of around $2,000.' He was responding to an appeal from Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Lim Hwee Hua to let women use Medi-save to pay for breast cancer screenings. Mrs Lim said on Saturday that helping women aged 50 to 69 form a habit of screening for breast cancer every two years is a current priori...

Just managed to browse through the news to see this article pasted below: UNITED Overseas Bank (UOB) has sold its life insurance unit for $428 million to UK's biggest insurer Prudential, in a move that will free up some capital to strengthen its core banking business. The so-called 'alliance' will see UOB distribute Prudential's life, accident and health insurance products in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand for at least 12 years. UOB Life Assurance, which was incorporated in Singapore in 1990, has over $2 billion in assets as at September last year. It also has 50,000 policyholders who hold a total of 70,000 policies. It has no agents. UOB Life's products are distributed mainly through channels like bancassurance - or the sale of insurance and other similar products through a bank - and through independent financial advisers. At a briefing on Wednesday, UOB Group's deputy chairman and chief executive Wee Ee Cheong said that UOB Life is a 'relatively small ...

SINGAPORE: Players in the insurance industry here may have to contribute to a fund to compensate policy owners in the event an insurer defaults. That is a proposal that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is considering in a bid to strengthen the protection of insurance policy owners. MAS said a proposed Policy Owners' Protection Fund (PPF) will help to alleviate the loss of insurance coverage to policy owners. It is also of the view that such a fund will limit the potential disruption to the society as well as the economy, and will enhance public confidence in the sector. Among the proposed changes, the PPF schemes will provide 100 per cent coverage of protected liabilities for all life as well as accident and health policies. The PPF will be administered by the Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation (SDIC). Member institutions will be assessed once a year for the PPF levies and the minimum levy is S$2,500 per annum. This is not the first time that such an idea has been bro...

Below is the Straits Times Article on NTUC clearing the air on why they paid the amount they paid for a certain case. Many times, people have no idea what they purchase from the insurance companies because of ignorance and also complicated rules and jargon used by the insurance industry. It is time that the government starts a compulsory education for all in Singapore. I REFER to Mr Ong Kok Lam's Forum Online letter last Wednesday, "Puzzled by insurer's payout for medical claim". Mr Ong wrote that his wife could claim only $240 of her $7,995.15 hospitalisation bill under her IncomeShield MA Plan, and inquired why the payout was not higher. Generally, the amount that a policyholder can claim depends on the type of insurance plan that he is covered under. All shield plans currently available on the market have a "deductible" and a "co-insurance" feature. A "deductible" is the amount a policyholder has to pay before the insurance benefit i...

What are restructured hospitals in Singapore? You will commonly find the term restructured hospitals in the various hospitalisation plans. I did some research to find out what these hospitals are actually. These hospitals are actually run as a private company and is wholly-owned by the Government through the Ministry of Health, Singapore, and it receives a government subsidy for the provision of subsidised medical services to its patients. These basically refer to the following hospitals: 1. Alexander 2. Changi General Hospital 3. National University Hospital 4. Singapore General Hospital 5. Tan Tock Seng Hospital 6. Khoo Teck Puat Hospital 7. Ng Teng Fong Hospital

There has been a recent change in Section 57 of the Insurance Act where the insurable interest on the life of a child has been amended to below age 18. An extract of the act states : "A Life policy insuring the life of a person which is issued by a registered insurer shall be void unless his child or ward under the age of 18 years at the time the insurance is effected." This essentially means that parents can no longer buy an insurance policy on their child's life once he is above the age of 18. Also, a transfer of policy (be it under any of the optional riders) cannot take place unless the child is below 18 years of age.