What Do We Have to Know About Medical Insurance?

Recently, I was doing some research on the cost of insurance comparison for some of the medical card/insurance available in the market today and i stumbled upon this document. This document was compiled by one of the financial planning company and it was dated 14 September, 2010. So i guess, the medical insurance comparisons they made should be still relevant at the moment.

From the document, there are a few interesting notes that i should highlight:

• Medical insurance attached with an Investment Linked plan as a rider offers LEVEL premium: This means, as a consumer, you will pay FIX premium through out the tenure, for your investment-linked insurance, unless the units in your investment-linked insurance are not enough to cover the rise in cost of insurance for the riders attached to your policy.
• One does not need to disclose his/her medical history if it happened more than 10 years ago: This is new to me! If there are some insurance agents out there, please confirm whether this is true!
• It is always a wiser choice to purchase medical benefit under an Investment Linked plan because it gives some returns at any point in time whereas there is no return if one buys standalone medical plan: This is a good reminder to potential customers out there scouting for medical cards

UPDATED: Allianz Powerlink MediCover Schedule of Benefits & Premium Table

MediCover is the hospitalization and surgical/medical plan rider within Allianz Powerlink investment-linked life policy. This ILP has been pretty popular lately due to its affordability. Some of the selling points for this MediCover medical plan are:

1. Coverage until 80 years old - which is more than sufficient for most people.
2. No co-insurance within the limit of room & board rate
3. 10 times lifetime limit
4. Outpatient cancer & kidney dialysis treatment subject to annual limit
5. Maximum 150 days of hospitalization in normal ward
6. Affordable cost of insurance - at the publishing time, this MediCover medical plan charges one of the lowest fees for medical coverage. However, this cost of insurance is not guaranteed to be level premium.

Better to Rent or Buy a Property Now?

With the ever escalating property prices in Malaysia nowadays, a lot of genuine property buyers (especially first time buyers) must be wondering: should i buy or rent a property in view of sky high property prices? You must have read or heard a zillion arguments on why you should buy a property NOW because there's an old saying that property prices will only stagnant and not go down even during economic downturn.

To be fair, I'll try to weigh the advantages of buying and renting a property and form a conclusion at the end of the article based on my own opinion. Take these opinions with a pinch of salt and draw your own conclusion on whether buying or renting a property is more apt for you.

Here's why you should buy a property now:

忙碌了一輩子，大家來到退休時，都希望自己能夠輕鬆沒煩惱地享受自由的生活。


但想要沒煩惱，就要事前準備，因為今天的規劃，能夠換來他日的幸福。

退休前后的生活會有很大轉變，尤其收入會減少，因此，退休前即要減輕債務，又得準備退休后的開銷。

做好安排，才能確保退休后，沒有工作收入的情況下，有效使用退休金，避免短期內就消耗完。

只需在退休前，完成6件事，退休生活就能安穩無憂慮。


（一）優先清除債務

若能夠在退休前，就把所有債務清還，是最理想的情況。而且，償還債務次序以利率最高的債務優先，如信用卡債務。

退休生活，應當輕鬆自在進行自己喜歡的活動，不應該為了債務而煩惱，而且確保老本不會被債務侵蝕掉。

但理財師說，若退休前已把貸款納入退休開銷預算，貸款其實還不算可怕。

假設一個人的貸款會在他60歲時屆滿，加上已做出預備，則無大礙。但如汽車貸款，就不應該在55歲的退休年齡申請了，若要買車，儘量用現金。　

一般上，退休者也很難再獲得貸款，因為金融機構很少批准貸款給沒有收入來源的人士。