As a Singaporean living in India, should I buy global health insurance?
NRIs and high-networth individuals are increasingly choosing global health insurance. It is an effective way to get treatment anywhere in the world. However, these policies tend to be more expensive than local plans. The higher cost is driven by expensive geographies such as US.
Since you do not anticipate staying in countries other than Singapore & India, it would be better to keep your local plans. Domestic plans provide access to localised service. They give you access to a wider network of hospitals, and a quicker claims process. Another significant advantage of domestic plans is that our regulations are policyholder-friendly, with benefits such as life-long renewability and no claim rejections allowed after five years.
For your short business or leisure trips, you could buy travel insurance. Travel insurance plans provide coverage for emergency hospitalisation and medical expenses.
Your understanding is correct. Costs, especially recurring ones, of a ULIP plan can significantly hamper the returns of any investment instrument.
There are three key recurring expenses for a ULIP. The first recurring cost is the fund management fee, which depends on the underlying fund. It tends to be high for equity-oriented funds and low for debt funds. The fund management charge for an equity fund is around 1.35%.
Then there is the policy allocation charge, which could be between 0 and 6%. Third is the policy admin charge. This is generally 0 to 0.9%.
However, the regulator puts a cap on the total charges allowed. This cap depends upon the policy tenure. Charges allowed outside the cap are mortality costs – the cost of providing death cover. Generally, as the investment corpus grows, the sum at risk falls. So, for long-term plans the mortality costs tends to be negligible over time.
Abhishek Bondia is a principal officer and managing director at SecureNow Insurance Broker Pvt. Ltd.
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As a Singaporean living in India, should I buy global health insurance?
NRIs and high-networth individuals are increasingly choosing global health insurance. It is an effective way to get treatment anywhere in the world. However, these policies tend to be more expensive than local plans. The higher cost is driven by expensive geographies such as US. Since you do not anticipate staying in countries other than Singapore & India, it would be better to keep your local plans. Domestic plans provide access to localised service. They give you access to a wider network of hospitals, and a quicker claims process. Another significant advantage of domestic plans is that our regulations are policyholder-friendly, with benefits such as life-long renewability and no claim rejections allowed after five years. For your short business or leisure trips, you could buy travel insurance. Travel insurance plans provide coverage for emergency hospitalisation and medical expenses. Your understanding is correct. Costs, especially recurring ones, of a ULIP plan can significantly hamper the returns of any investment instrument. There are three key recurring expenses for a ULIP. The first recurring cost is the fund management fee, which depends on the underlying fund. It tends to be high for equity-oriented funds and low for debt funds. The fund management charge for an equity fund is around 1.35%. Then there is the policy allocation charge, which could be between 0 and 6%. Third is the policy admin charge. This is generally 0 to 0.9%. However, the regulator puts a cap on the total charges allowed. This cap depends upon the policy tenure. Charges allowed outside the cap are mortality costs – the cost of providing death cover. Generally, as the investment corpus grows, the sum at risk falls. So, for long-term plans the mortality costs tends to be negligible over time. Abhishek Bondia is a principal officer and managing director at SecureNow Insurance Broker Pvt. Ltd.
