How much Private health insurance Cost

[MovingfromSydneySingapore]

How much Private health insurance Cost for a Family of 4

Mother , myself , my wife and Baby. Any tips.

[jivintan]

Hi,

may i have their age @ next birthday?

Regards.
JT

[MovingfromSydneySingapore]

Mother - 52
Myself - 26 (Australian Citizen)
My wife - 24 (3 months Pregnant)
Boy - 2 Years

[jivintan]

Hi,

assuming u going for annual limit of S$50000, premium as follow:
mother : S$703
yourself : S$398
your wife : S$373
son : S$416

Above rate before GST and you should be able to get 5% discount for yourself, your wife and your son under family package. I got to reconfirm the premium for your wife as she is pregnant now. Your mum is not entitled to the 5% discount according to the definition of family package. Can I have your email address or you can drop me a mail and I will send you details of the package?

Have a nice weekend.

Thanks & regards.
JT

[MovingfromSydneySingapore]

The figure you have quoted, is it for monthly or yearly?

[jivintan]

Yearly premium

[singaporean]

I have lived in singapore for 20 years and no one I know have any insurance. THe system is highly subsidised and unless you need a big big major operation, it is a waste of money for private insurance. The best thing is for you to apply for PR (real easy) and use your medishield to cover expenses.

A visit to the doctors here cost about $30 including medicines. You don't have to go to a pharmacy for that. A emergency admission to the ER cost about $60 for foreigners. If you wife is pregnant, it would be best to get a doctor when you come. A good hospital to try would be Mount Elizabeth and Gleneagles. The best public hospital for women and children is the KK hospital for women and childen.

[MovingfromSydneySingapore]

Wow! I really appreciate your comments. Are you also an expat ?

[jivintan]

Hi,

agree with singaporean reply but few things to note:
1. health insurance is not meant for outpatient medical treatment like cough, flu, etc. Health insurance is more to cover hospital bill should you be hospitalised due to accident or illness like dengue fever, bird flu, etc. All these would cost us a lot for the whole treatment

2. using of CPF. You may be able to offset your med bill against your medisave but there's always a limit per claim and subjected to sufficient amount in your medisave account. Since you will be new to Singapore, you would have to start from zero and it takes you quite sometime to actually be able to offset your med bills against your medisave account

3. Using medishield - you can use medishield to claim for your med bill but there is a limit to each category like board room rate, operation theatre limit, etc. Everything has a limit.

You have to consider this if you are not taking up any health insurance and wants to rely solely on CPF.

Personal opinion.

[kawaguchi]

I think it will be complicated to discuss here. But to know more just drop me a mail. I am into insurance planning. Glad to help

cheers

[Yutenji]

I have lived in singapore for 20 years and no one I know have any insurance. THe system is highly subsidised and unless you need a big big major operation, it is a waste of money for private insurance. The best thing is for you to apply for PR (real easy) and use your medishield to cover expenses.

A visit to the doctors here cost about $30 including medicines. You don't have to go to a pharmacy for that. A emergency admission to the ER cost about $60 for foreigners. If you wife is pregnant, it would be best to get a doctor when you come. A good hospital to try would be Mount Elizabeth and Gleneagles. The best public hospital for women and children is the KK hospital for women and childen.

Hi, sorry, but I totally disagree with singaporean's highly questionable logic ... "If I never get ill, I never have medical bills and therefore insurance is a waste of money."

While that's true "If I never get ill" , NOBODY knows whether they're going to get ill, and the likelyhood of having serious health problems (sadly) gets higher as you get older. The catch-22 of this is that also as you get older it's harder to get insurance (because now you're a bigger risk) and it's usually more expensive.

The whole point of insurance is to cover UN-planned events, and you just have to accept that fact that if you never get ill you've wasted your money (except of course for the peace of mind it buys you and your family).

I do agree with singaporean that local health care for minor visits to the doctor is cheap enough to not worry about, and that medishield will help a little on bigger items. It is -very- little by the way, if you check all the conditions, the first X dollars that you have to pay yourself, etc. Take a look here http://www.cpf.gov.sg/MyCPF/TH_3.asp and note all the "... up to S$nnn ..." statements.

But to protect yourself and your family I strongly believe you should seek professional advice on this. (No, I am not an insurance salesman looking for business).

Insurance can be (even according to the professionals) mind-booglingly confusing, and unscrupulous salesmen certainly don't help. My company recently received a presentation (happy to forward to anyone interested, though may not make much sense without the speaker) in which that LACK of value in medishield was sadly obvious. Case in point, a 35 year old woman with a not unusual back problem received a bill for S$8,900, for which medishield only repaid S$900!

Sorry for the lecture here. singaporean is entitled to his/her opinion and I'm delighted that he/she has had so many years of good health. I'm also not criticising the Singapore health system nor medishield, of which as a PR living here for the last 12 years I've made good use, but you must understand the limitations of them.

Good luck

[svd32]

So glad to come accross this topic as I am shopping around for health insurance myself.

We just moved back to Singapore - I am 2 mths pregnant and just got my PR. Anyone knows how Medishield works? Currently I am not working so I wonder if my husband can pay for my Medishield premium?

My obstetrician/gynecologist said that most of the insurance policies here does not cover pregnancy so I think private health insurance is definitely essential (at least for MovingfrSydney's wife).

Jivintan, can you give me some details of the quote for pregnant woman? Thank you very much!

[jivintan]

Hi SVD32,

maybe u can drop me a mail and I can revert to you on your queries.

Thanks and regards
JT

[xser]

medishield covers pregnancy and baby after delivery?

does it cover outpatient and medicine totally or only
a percentage?

[jivintan]

xser,

Medishield does not cover normal outpatient like flu, fever cough but some normal injection such as Hep A & B.

Thanks & regards.
JT