Best Critical Illness Insurance

A critical illness insurance policy will give out a lump sum payment, which you can use for anything you want. This is useful, because some of the costs associated will illness and hospitalisation are incurred outside the hospital.

A critical illness plan gives you a lump sum payment if you are diagnosed with one of the covered critical illnesses under the plan you buy.

To qualify for a critical illness insurance depends on the individual product's terms and conditions. There are products you can apply online within minutes while others will require detailed medical checkups. 

If you have pre-existing medical conditions, that may be a factor in whether you can qualify.

A critical illness plan can protect your finances from any major illnesses. Which is why it’s good to have additional critical illness coverage on top of your basic medical plan.

Once diagnosed with a critical illness covered by the plan, you can use the lump sum payout for anything you want (e.g. pay off some of the costs associated with illness, but were not incurred in the hospital)

The most common types of critical illness plans are:

Basic critical illness - This covers a set of critical illnesses (depending on your policy, this could range from 36 to 50+ critical illnesses) at late stage conditions.

Early-stage critical illness - This generally pays out a lump sum upon diagnosis of a covered critical illness at early stage and a remainder payout at the late stage.

Multiple critical illness - Under this policy, you’ll be able to make multiple claims throughout the policy term. But you’ll need to check the fine print – some policies allow you to make multiple claims on the same critical illness if it relapses, while some policies will allow you to make claims for different critical illnesses.

It helps protect your finances by:

• providing for financial support not covered by a medical plan. 
• supplementing family income when family members need to stop working to care for
• covering for loss of income from long periods of unpaid leave or job loss

Things to look for:

1. Affordability. 

While you should make space in your budget for insurance, it shouldn’t make it hard for you to service other financial obligations.

    2. Coverage. 

How much coverage do you need? The general rule of thumb for minimum coverage is three years’ worth of your annual income.

So if you’re looking for a medical protection plan that is beyond basic protection and a bit more thorough, a critical illness plan may be the right one for you.

For example, if you earn RM48,000 a year, you should buy RM144,000 worth of insurance coverage for critical illness. However, the insurance premium for your policy shouldn’t exceed 10% of your annual income (RM4,800 per annum in this case).