Critical Illness Insurance – Your Best Defense is Confidence
No one likes getting sick – for health and financial reasons. With critical illness draining the resources of many families, Filipinos nowadays take health insurance and health care very seriously. Yuppies (young professionals) usually have their own HMO under their company. This gives them free medical check-ups and medical tests when they get sick. However, is your PhilHealth and HMO enough to cover your medical expenses when you get diagnosed with a Critical Illness Disease?
Cost of Being Diagnosed with Critical Illness
Sun Life Assure
Offering the broadest coverage for critical illness insurance in the market today, Sun LifeAssure is a five-year renewable term plan that protects the insured from 36 Critical Illnesses as listed below.
Covered Critical Illnesses
- Heart Attack
- Stroke
- Cancer
- Kidney Failure
- Dissecting Aortic Aneurysm
- End Stage Lung Disease
- Progressive Muscular Atrophy
- Major Burns
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Paralysis
- Total Blindness
- Loss of Limbs
- Aplastic Anaemia
- Bacterial Meningitis
- Benign Brain Tumour
- Deafness
- Encephalitis
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
- Progressive Bulbar Palsy (PBP)
- Meningeal Tuberculosis
- Cerebral Metastasis
- Loss of Speech
- Coma
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Terminal Illness
- Medullary Cystic Disease
- Alzheimer’s Disease
- Fulminant Hepatitis
- Major Head Trauma
- End Stage Liver Failure
- Motor Neurone Disease
- Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Critical Illnesses Requiring Surgery – means any of the surgeries specified and defined as follows:
33. Major Organ Transplant
34. Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery
35. Surgery for Disease of the Aorta (Aortic Surgery)
36. Replacement of Heart Valve
What I like about this plan
As this is a term plan, Sun Life Assure is very cheap. For a 30 year old non-smoker, a Php 500,000 coverage costs only Php 5,000 per year. A Php 1 Million coverage costs around Php 10,000 annually – which is less than Php 1,000 per month. In addition to this, Sun LifeAssure will automatically release the face amount (eg. Php 500,000 or Php 1 Million) once the insured is diagnosed with any one of the Critical Illness Disease.
Downside to Term
Getting a term plan can also have drawbacks. For one, there are no return of premiums. This is similar to HMO insurance from companies. If you weren’t able to avail of your benefits, you do not get your money back. Getting it cheap comes with a price.
Also, since this is a 5 year renewable plan, premiums increase every 5 years. Taking the 30 year old non smoker as an example, a Php 5,070 annual premium will remain the same until the 5th year. Once you renew this, premiums will increase by Php 518 for year 6-10.
Also, if you have pre existing or history of any of the illnesses mentioned, you’ll have difficulty in getting approved, as with any insurance. So better avail while young and healthy.
Overall, is this plan recommendable for Critical Illness Insurance?
Absolutely recommendable. There are so many plans to choose from. It all boils down to your financial needs. When it comes to Critical Illness Insurance, this is one of the best plans you can get. Why?
Read Related Post: Paying Critical Illness Treatments Without Insurance
Sun Life Assure covers the broadest list of Critical Illness Diseases in the market today. You can purchase Sun Life Assure independently and get life insurance and health benefits, or you may opt to purchase another (VUL) product and add Sun Life Assure as a rider.
