Agreed with you that insurance as per meaning of the word.
But till age 45 would be a good age to then buy isn't it? One can see the premium are lower and after 45 then there is a "spike" in the premium, no?
I wouldn't call the increase in premium at 45 is spike. It is increased of risk along with older age. The actual spike is when you're 60-70. It is when the premium become un-affordable.
I do have friends who bought in their 20s till now in late 30s or early 40s. All these years of premium paid just paid for nothing and you cannot claim any back like the saving insurance etc...
Of course they argue that insurance as way to insure and $$$ is can be earn back in the healthy prime years....
Nope. It is not paid for nothing. If I'm your friend, I will be happy that nothing happened to me. I'm paying for the transfer of risk, hence the essence of insurance.
So, are you saying you're happier if there is "money value" in your health insurance? I know that some countries bundled the health insurance with investment. But in the end, you are just paying more for the investment portion.
An agent just told me that at 35-early 40s can straight admit into these policies without any health checks needed. So you mean there are still some "blind" points that I have missed out?
Imagine the scenario whereby someone 40 years old. Then don't have any serious medical conditions, never been hospitalized before. Then that person take the integrated shield plan and accepted without exclusion. Suddenly 1 year later, suffer from stroke. and incurred bill of $100k. What do you think the insurer will do? They will dig the health history of that person, found out of high blood pressure and high cholesterol and saying the person didn't declare, hence pre-existing conditions which won't be covered by the insurance. If that person took the shield plan from early 20s, the insurance company has to dig data from 20 years ago. And most probably they won't do that.
I'm not saying that the insurance company will do this, most probably they will just pay the claim. But there is a risk when you're older.
I think in the end of the day, you'll need to think yourself whether it is worth the risk to save those few thousand dollars. I understand your point of view and it will be quite hard to change that. You will need to think for yourself.
At the very least, if you have full time job, you should upgrade the shield plan without the rider (if you're concern on the cash portion). If you're below 40, it should be fully covered by medisave. And you can't withdraw your medisave anyway.