ING MediPlus Medical Card Schedule of Benefits & Premium Table - V2

Sometime in 2010, ING revised their medical plans to enhance the annual claims limit with significant premium increment. Since ING is a prominent player in the medical insurance industry, the huge premium increment is a significant development and might lead other insurance companies to fllow suit. This will not be beneficial to the consumers.

If you compare the old medical plan here, there is an increment of 20% of premium for a 30 year old male who purchased the IMPlus 2 cashless medical plan, in exchange for a mere 10,000 increment in annual limit. This does not sound like a good deal for the consumers to me!

Detailed schedule of benefits and premium table for the revised ING MediPlus medical plans are as follow:

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: