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When it comes to planning for our future, it’s important to think about both our upside and downside. Through investing, we make our money work harder for us and potentially grow our wealth over time. Yet, that only increases our upside. Concurrently, we also need to protect ourselves and our families against downside risks.
While investing aims to increase our returns for the future, insurance lies on the other end of the spectrum – to protect us financially against adverse and unforeseen circumstances. For example, an accident or critical illness may limit our ability to work and provide for ourselves and our loved ones.
What Does It Mean To Be Well Covered?
While nobody would likely disagree that insurance is important, a common question would be: what does it mean for a person to be well-covered?
One way to think about insurance planning is to draw some parallels to preparing for an examination. In an examination, we may have a rough idea of the topics that will be tested but we won’t know exactly what the questions are going to be until the examination. As such, we prepare ourselves by covering as many topics as possible.
In the same way, when it comes to insurance planning, we won’t know exactly what curve balls life would throw at us. However, we can have an idea of how these curve balls may look and prepare for them. These would include accidental death and critical illnesses.
Death Benefit Protects Our Family Financially Against Death
Death benefit is the amount that is paid out to loved ones when death occurs to the policyholder. This could be an unfortunate accident or critical illness during one’s younger days, or during old age. Death benefit is important because it provides our loved ones with a payout that can help them financially in times of need.
Critical Illness Coverage
Critical illnesses such as cancer, stroke and heart disease are illnesses that can occur to anyone, even those who are young and healthy. While they are serious illnesses, they can be treated with some people recovering from them, especially if the illnesses are detected early.
With critical illness coverage, we can receive a lump sum payout that can help tide us and our family through the challenging period. The payout can finance the cost of treatments that are not covered by our hospitalisation plans. The funds can also be used to support ourselves and our families during the recovery period when we may be unable to work.
As both death benefits and critical illness coverage are vital, life insurance plans such as the i-Secure Legacy, a whole life protection plan offered by China Taiping SG, allow policyholders to add whole life critical illness riders (e.g. AdvancedCare Rider and EarlyCare Rider) to their whole life insurance plan. In particular, the optional EarlyCare Rider can cover up to 161 medical conditions – in the event that you are diagnosed with any of these conditions, the policy will pay out a lump sum which you can use for your best treatment without worrying about your finances.
Besides critical illnesses, the EarlyCare Rider also provides coverage for 12 Juvenile Conditions such as Kawasaki Disease, and 12 Special Conditions such as Diabetic Complications.
You can find more details about the i-Secure Legacy from China Taiping SG here.
Having Suitable Coverage Amount When We Need It The Most
When preparing for an examination, knowing what topics to cover is just one aspect of preparation. Knowing when we need to start preparing for our examination is also important. If we start our revision too late, we may still find ourselves performing poorly, in spite of knowing what we should be studying for.
Similarly, when it comes to insurance, knowing what is the right protection coverage we need isn’t sufficient. We also need to ensure that we have the suitable coverage amount we need across the various stages in our lives.
For example, a 40-year-old father with three kids and elderly parents to care for will likely need higher insurance coverage as compared to his future 80-year-old self when his kids are grown up and his parents have passed on.
During our younger days, we may require higher coverage, especially if we have young children and elderly parents who are reliant on our income. Thus, we may want a higher death benefit and critical illness coverage amount. When we are older, with our children having started working and our parents no longer around, the coverage amount we need will naturally reduce.
Life insurance plan like the i-Secure Legacy provides policyholders with a Guaranteed Benefit of 2, 3, or 4 times of the basic sum assured until age 76 (or 86). The idea is that, during our younger days, we would want a higher coverage as compared to our later, senior years.
Do note that upon reaching age 76 (or 86), the Guaranteed Benefit will reduce by 10% each policy year for five years, and will remain at 50% for life.
In the unfortunate event that death occurs, the death benefit payout will be either the 1) Guaranteed Benefit or the 2) Basic Sum Assured + Non-guaranteed Bonuses, whichever is higher. For example, a policyholder with a sum assured of S$75,000 can choose a multiplier of 4 times, and will enjoy a Guaranteed Benefit of S$300,000 until the age of 76 (or 86). From 76 onwards, the Guaranteed Benefit will reduce by 10% each year, until it reaches S$150,000 by age 80 (or 90).
i-Secure Legacy Can Be Valuable For Children
One misconception when it comes to whole life protection plans such as i-Secure Legacy is that it’s only suitable for working adults. This isn’t true. While adults and their families will certainly benefit from the coverage offered by the policy, i-Secure Legacy can also be valuable for children.
For example, parents who purchase the i-Secure Legacy can ensure their child is protected against common critical illnesses today and in the future by adding on the EarlyCare Rider which also covers Juvenile Conditions such as Kawasaki Disease and Hand, Food, Mouth Disease with Severe Complications.
And since coverage is lifelong, whole life protection plans can act as the first layer of protection for our children when they grow up and have their own family, providing them and their family with death and critical illness coverage for life.
Limited Pay Period
Whether we are purchasing i-Secure Legacy for ourselves, our spouse or our children, the idea here is that we want to enjoy lifelong protection throughout our lives. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we want to pay the premiums for the policy for the rest of our lives.
Most whole life protection plans offer a limited pay period. Once the premiums have been paid during the limited pay period, coverage will continue for life unless the policy is claimed upon, terminated or surrendered by the policyholder. For i-Secure Legacy, we can choose a premium payment terms of 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 years.
China Taiping SG is currently running a promotion for i-Secure Legacy with 20% cash rewards on your first annual premium for a limited period only!
i-Secure Legacy Is A Cash Value Policy
Finally, while the primary objective of the i-Secure Legacy is to provide us with lifelong protection coverage. It’s worth noting that it’s also a cash value policy. What this means is that the policy will build up cash value over time through non-guaranteed bonuses as it is a participating policy that shares in the profits of the company’s participating fund. If you choose to surrender the policy, you will receive the surrender value. However, the surrender value will likely be lower as compared to the death benefit payout.
Find out more about i-Secure Legacy on China Taiping SG’s website and download the product brochure here.
Read Also: Understanding CareShield Life: How It Covers Singaporeans For Severe Disability, And Who Is Covered
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