Medical and Critical Illness Insurance
Key Points
- What is medical and critical illness insurance?
- Differences between medical and critical illness insurance
- Types of critical illness covered by insurance
- Insurers that offer medical and critical illness insurance
Insurance is essential for long-term purposes because we cannot predict what will happen in the future, especially our health. Nowadays, as you can see, health is something that people have been concerned about and have started to take up medical insurance. To relate, we bet some of us are still unaware and confused between medical and critical insurance as they think both are the same. But both are not the same in function, coverage, and payout!
Having your own medical and critical illness insurance is a good choice because you can’t solely depend on your company for medical insurance, right? What if you no longer work with the company? If you get sick, who is going to cover the bill for your medical expenses? These are the questions you should ask yourself. Therefore, we have briefly explained below what you need to know about medical and critical illness insurance.
What is medical and critical illness insurance?
Medical insurance is a type of insurance that will cover either partial or whole costs in the case of a medical emergency requiring hospitalisation and the cost of your treatment. As we know, the cost of different treatments can range from thousands to a hundred thousand per treatment. That is why having medical insurance is essential and, at the same time, can lessen your financial burden. However, you must remember that there is an exclusion list of treatments not covered by your medical insurance. Hence, you need to always refer to your insurance policy.
Meanwhile, critical illness insurance will give you and your family a lump sum payout if you are diagnosed with one of the 39 critical illnesses. First, it can lessen your financial burden because you can use the money to support yourself and your family if anything happens to you. Second, this amount that you received can then be used for anything, not restricted to medical treatment.
Differences between medical and critical illness insurance
| Medical Insurance | Critical Illness Insurance |
|---|---|
| What is the purpose? | |
| To cover medical expenses, hospitalisation, and medicine only. | To give a lump sum payout in the event, you are diagnosed with one of the 39 critical illnesses. |
| What can you do with the payout? | |
| You can use it to pay for medical costs of treatment or hospitalisation. | You can use the lump sum payout for anything, not restricted to medical treatment. |
| What are the benefits? | |
| You can use it to pay for your medical treatment purposes, including hospitalisation, follow-up treatment, and daycare procedures. | You and your family can use the payout to cover other things besides medical bills. |
| What is the premium payment like? | |
| The premium will increase with age. | The premium will not change during your lifetime. |
Types of critical illness covered by insurance
These are the 39 critical illnesses covered by most insurance companies, depending on your policy:
- Stroke
- Cancer
- Heart Attack
- Coronary Artery By-Pass
- Serious Coronary Artery Disease
- Angioplasty and Other Invasive Treatments for Coronary Artery Disease
- Heart Valve Surgery
- Fulminant Viral Hepatitis
- End-Stage Liver Failure
- Primary Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
- End-Stage Lung Disease
- Kidney Failure
- Surgery to Aorta
- Chronic Aplastic Anemia
- Major Organ / Bone Marrow Transplant
- Blindness
- Deafness
- Loss of Speech
- Coma
- Third Degree Burns
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Paralysis of Limbs
- Muscular Dystrophy
- Alzheimer’s Disease / Severe Dementia
- Motor Neuron Disease
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Terminal Illness
- Encephalitis
- Benign Brain Tumour
- Major Head Trauma
- Bacterial Meningitis
- Brain Surgery
- Medullary Cystic Disease
- Loss of Independent Existence
- HIV Infection due to Blood Transfusion
- Cardiomyopathy
- Full-blown AIDS
- Occupationally Acquired Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Infection
- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus with Severe Kidney Complications
However, always refer to your policy because there are some major exclusions that the policy does not cover.
Insurers that offer medical and critical illness insurance
These are some of the insurance companies in Malaysia that offer both medical and critical illness insurance products:
- AIA
- AXA Malaysia
- Manulife
- Prudential
- Great Eastern
- Allianz
- Tune Protect
There are many more insurance companies that offer medical and critical insurance.
Verdict
The bottom line is both medical insurance and critical illness insurance are important. Having medical insurance is definitely more important. But if you would like extra protection for yourself and your family, adding critical illness insurance is one of the good decisions too. As explained above, medical insurance will only cover medical expenses. In contrast, critical illness insurance will give you and your family a lump sum payout if you are diagnosed with one of the 39 critical illnesses. However, before you take up critical illness insurance, do your research and consider certain things such as affordability, coverage, dependents, and family history. Take your time and choose what is best for you!
