“Dear Wilfred, With regards to your article on health insurance for obese. In the article, you advised that if we have been previously been rejected by other insurance company, we should not apply for Aviva Myshield as moratoriun underwriting.. Should I then go for a medical health screen, then apply for full medical underwriting? Is there other insurance company recommended that will accept people with BMI 33, age 38?” – Regards X,
Dear X,
BMI of 33 is too high of a value. If I am your financial adviser I wouldn’t even bother to recommend any insurance policies except for Aviva’s Moratorium Underwriting. Once this policy is in place, I would than suggest trying for other plans such as CI, term etc.
Unfortunately, Aviva’s Moratorium Underwriting is not for individuals who were rejected by other insurance companies. The financial adviser is prohibited to transact the case under Moratorium if the individual has already been rejected by other insurers.
There are two lessons here. First lesson is that this is an example of the importance of buying insurance early rather than wait. I am surprised that at age 38 there is still no proper insurance plan done. Insurance is NOT optional and is NOT available to those who really want it for those who really want it is already sub-standard.
Second lesson is the importance of engaging professional financial advisers. 99.999999999999% of the financial advisers are like this - they transact their insurance policies like another product sale but they don’t think before they act. You should make a complain to MAS that the adviser causes you to be rejected without having obtain the Moratorium Underwriting for a shield plan. The medical shield plan is the most important insurance. Everything else is second. If that adviser is a tied-agent, there is also no excuse because the Financial Advisers Act state clearly that all recommendations must be of a reasonable basis. If he or she recommended a product that causes you to have no coverage for medical insurance, it means that the recommendation was NOT reasonable.
Anyway, you may wish to try another plan which has a 2 years rolling moratorium and available even for those who were previously rejected but the premiums are quite high.
To illustrate how important insurance is, recently, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He was worried about the medical bill for the cancer operation and chemotherapy if there is no insurance coverage. Fortunately I helped him to get an as-charged medical insurance years ago which pay 90% of the bill. So far the operation bill was a 5 figure sum at a B1 ward. The cost of the coming 6 months chemotherapy is going to be very expensive. But because he is going to pay just 10%, the total cost of the operation and chemotherapy is just small change.(For your information, I earned NOTHING for a few years after I sold the policy to him because the insurer “forgot” to appoint me as his financial adviser to the policy. I did not check for my commissions for a few years.)
P/S. Just 1 year ago I posted an article on a special planning for those who are sub-standard. Apparently nobody contacted me since I posted it. I guess this is a reflection in Singapore that nobody bothers about financial planning until it is too late. I hope GST will not go up just because the government has to help those in need just because they didn’t bother to do any pro-active financial planning. The article was posted here: Medical Insurance for Uninsurable Persons
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