Secure your medical coverage for the future

> With rising medical costs each year,Great Eastern presents an affordable extension plan to secure the future of Malaysians

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Nlate 2014, theSun covered an article by the Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia, highlighting the soaring costs of private healthcare, that have been compounded by the recent implementation of GST this year. Rising costs of private healthcare has caused apprehension and fear for many, not knowing what the unforeseeable future may bring. Many Malaysians are therefore plagued by the burden of getting good and reliable medical coverage for themselves and their loved ones.

For peace of mind and to help the rakyat manage their income and their medical coverage needs, Great Eastern (GE), a company with 106 years in the industry, has helped millions of customers achieve their financial goals with its range of financial protection plans. Today, the insurance powerhouse continues to expand its financial protection plans to address consumer worries and tailor solutions to better suit consumer needs.

With medical inflation impossible to ignore, more Malaysians are looking into ways to extend their medical insurance coverage to complement their existing medical plan, without burning a hole in their pockets. To address the matter, GE has come up with a new product.

In a recent exclusive interview with theSun, Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Bhd’s executive vice-president and CMO Nicholas Kua ( pix) shares his views about the company’s latest innovative and comprehensive product, the Smart Extender Max (SEM).

What is the Smart Extender Max (SEM) and what prompted GE to offer the plan? SEM, at the core, comes as a top-up medical coverage to an existing medical plan. For example, for a customer with an existing medical coverage of RM100,000, SEM offers an extension to the existing medical coverage of RM100,000, by another RM1 million. In short, the customer will have, in total, RM1.1 million coverage a year.

Medical insurance is undeniably one of the most sought assurances. Based on our analysis of the annual medical coverage owned by our policyholders, we noted that the more popular plans are typically the RM90,000 to RM120,000 annual coverage.

With reported medical inflation growing annually at an average of 10-12%, we felt that Malaysians would require an extension to their medical plan sooner than they expect. True enough, when this concept of extension was introduced to our policyholders in May last year, many of our customers took the opportunity to include the extension option in their medical insurance plan.

Given such broad acceptance by our policyholders, we believe there are many holders of medical insurance policies out there with similar concerns and are looking for exactly the same solution.

How much does the plan cost monthly? In designing the plan, we have taken into consideration the affordability of the plan, to make it available for as broad a segment as possible. At RM100 a month, we believe it will be affordable even to young professionals entering the workforce. Thus, using RM100 a month as a benchmark, we managed to make it possible even for a 50year-old to secure the plan at this nominal rate.

There are several combinations of the coverage to choose from but we are anticipating that the more popular option is the 1,000,000 extension plan. Other available options include the RM1.5 million and RM2 million extensions, besides the entry level of RM600,000 extension.

Any target market segments? With medical insurance being the core insurance coverage of any sound financial protection plan, we believe this plan will appeal to a broad range of customers from all segments. We will not be surprised if both the young and old alike will take the opportunity to include this option in their medical insurance plan. Nevertheless, it will be the young families, to which this coverage will be invaluable as young parents juggle with various financial commitments while putting up savings for children’s education and retirement, et cetera.

When you think about it, one major hospitalisation may wipe out entire hardearned savings. At just RM100 a month, the top-up of RM1 million medical coverage will go a long way to defray the costs of a major hospitalisation encounter, ensuring that their future aspirations, be it their children’s tertiary education or a comfortable retirement will remain intact and uninterrupted.

Any requirements in purchasing the plan? Despite the high coverage of RM1 million, potential buyers will only have to go through a standard underwriting questionnaire which is no different from a normal insurance policy application.

Do people need to have a medical plan before applying for SEM? Definitely, as SEM acts as an extension to a plan. For those who do not have existing medical insurance, we would advise customers to consider our comprehensive range of medical insurance plans that complement this extension to ensure seamless medical insurance coverage.

What are some of the benefits that the extension covers? The range of benefits is as comprehensive as a standard medical plan. In other words, customers are covered for the full scope of hospitalisation, including pre-hospitalisation, in-patient as well as post-hospitalisation treatment. In fact, SEM covers outpatient cancer and kidney dialysis treatment too.

What are your views on the insurance industry today and how has it evolved to better suit the needs of customers? Financial protection is deemed an essential part of a customer’s long term financial plan. With growing sophistication of today’s customers, the scope of financial protection has evolved beyond your traditional income continuation for the family and estate planning. Today’s customers seek empowerment in dealing with life’s uncertainties, be it major hospitalisation, critical illness or planning for their children’s education or even their own retirement.

While customers realise that they cannot always assume a rosy pathway in this journey of life, they want the financial means to be able to deal with life’s uncertainties, with the best possible options to ensure future aspirations can continue as planned.

Thus, consumers are availing themselves to the full arsenal of financial protection plans available today. Keeping pace with customers’ growing sophisticated wants and needs, Great Eastern has charted new frontiers in recent years, in providing early stage critical illness plans and major medical plans.

Can you share how GE has helped alleviate the rising medical costs for the rakyat? SEM was developed in response to our customers’ growing concern of medical inflation. In fact, we took the bold step of providing a solution with sufficient coverage, not just in the immediate years, but over the longer term of beyond a 20-year timeframe.

We did this because we understand that medical insurance becomes even more critical during retirement years and that is the time when one can ill-afford unbudgeted expenses, as every ringgit eats into your retirement fund.