I always believe investment is the only real key to financial safety. However, are you covered during this journey towards financial safety? Note, I am not even talking about financial success or financial freedom. Thus, I have some of my money in FD, a little bit in unit trust, a tiny bit in my own version of blue chip stocks, some properties and of course to protect my wealth I have insurance. A complete set of my life planning consists of medical insurance, illness insurance, whole life insurance, education, lastly savingzs and investment. In short, refer to the chart below. Today, let’s start with Medical Insurance.
Medical Insurance. You can be earning RM5,000 per month, have a healthy savings of 50% of your income every month. Yet, if you suddenly found out that you have kidney stones and needed a few ESWL treatments, it may cost you up to RM20,000 depending on which hospital you go to. This has just eaten up your savings for 8 months. However, if you have invested in a good medical insurance plan, at most it will cost you one month’s savings and you can still claim if you are hospitalized again. You only pay for the hospitalization charges such as government tax, uncovered items and core insurance on your medical card. Of course, if the insurance coverage is insufficient, you would need to fork out the balance. For medical insurance, you enjoy the medical benefits but of course the payment goes to the doctor directly and not to you.
Yes, it is true that majority of us would have a medical card given to us by our companies but please be reminded that should you stop working, the card automatically lapses. The older you buy, the higher premium that you would need to pay. Personally, besides my company’s medical card, I have also signed up for another medical card. I feel that this is an investment to cover myself financially. No interest earned but ‘touch wood’, if something were to happen, it will cover majority if not the whole bill from the hospital.
Part 1 – Jointly written by Crystal Teh and charles on 5 March 2014. Part – 2 to follow in a few days’ time.
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