Thursday, October 07, 2010

Insurance for co-payment

The Medishield and Private Shield plans require the patient to co-pay the part of the hospital bill, comprising of the deductible and co-insurance. Some insurance companies offer a rider to cover the co-payment. Many insurance agents sell the rider as an attractive benefit. In my view, it is all right for the consumer to self-insure and make the co-payments out of  savings (e.g. Medisave), rather than pay the insurance premium (that includes a loading for expenses and profit).

My explanation can be found here: www.tankinlian.com/latest.aspx (look for Medishield and private Shield).
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4 comments:

hosingping said...

Hi Mr Tan,

My husband and I have bought AVIVA private medishield. but never pay the rider becos i do not want to pay in cash. but since the private shield is being paid from Medisave. in your view do you think is ok to continue.

October 07, 2010 8:23 AM
Spur said...

The salesman actively promotes the riders to shield plan because the commission percentage is higher. Because the riders are paid using cash, hence the insurers can jack up the price and give a bigger reward to their salespeople.

Compared to the main shield plan, where customers are allowed to use Medisave, and because of CPF oversight, hence the insurers cannot jack up the price too much with bigger profit margins or bigger commissions.

October 07, 2010 9:54 AM
zhummmeng said...

To ntuc salesmen every skeleton also must insure.Shield plan is supposed to be a catastrophic insurance focusing on the big ticket bill instead the so called executive financial consultants 'advise' rider to take care of the cents. The money spent on the rider can buy a few hundred thousands of critical illness cover. You can see consumers are ill advised....Oh! I forgot they are salesmen peddling for commission.

October 07, 2010 9:56 PM
zhummmeng said...

I forgot in ntuc the insurance agents are passionately called the sales champions although they have titles like senior, executive financial consultants.Wonder why?
Pushing or peddling products has better chance of being #1 because the market share contest is based on APIs or weighted APIs. Consulting , advising is lip service or a dirty word, discouraged because it kills the APIs. The titles are to decieve the public into believing they are financial experts.They are so obssessed with being #1. They should be obssessed to aspire for the best financial consultants image and not the super duper sales champions.

October 07, 2010 10:55 PM

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