No, u will never need external insurance, except travel, motor, mortgage & fire insurance or certain conditions.
1) SAF term plan is the only plan that covers war related incidents.
2) SAF term plan remains the same until you are 65, and thereafter renewable yearly til 70 at a higher premium yearly.
3) SAF term plan can buy a early stage Critical Illness rider insurance too, subjected that you survive for 90 days after diagnosis if I am not mistaken. The only downside is that the CI rider covers until 65 years and the price goes up only at age 46.
There are other private insurance that covers CI up to 75 and even fixed the price until then. But it is can be twice as expensive overall.
4) You only need to buy hospitalization INCOME plan IF you are a self-employed (Informal worker & Odd-Job labourers too, but these group of people usually consist of low income earners who have other financial priorities).
This is because all companies are required to give you annual 7 days of leave, maximum 30 days of MC & 60 days of hospitalization leave (excluding maternity leave if i m nt wrong).
So hospitalization income plan benefit most for people who are self employed like hawkers, taxi drivers etc who will be hit the hardest should they ever be hospitalized. The rest of the people working on MNC, Civil Servant or SME will not need to worry about that.
The chances of getting > 60 days of hospitalization leave, is that someone can claim either Critical Illness (Like coma) or TPD.
5) All Singaporeans will be insured under Medishield Life, so that a portion of the hospital bills are being covered.
Anyway, as a NSF, you get literally free (except medicine cost) if u are warded in Class C. I paid $10 in medisave when I was hospitalized for 2 days, without using cash or insurance bcoz SAF is covering most of the bills (All the walk-in consultation fee, ward charges)
You will only need integrated medishield life if:
A) Intend to skip queue since the hospital bed crunch problem is still a present problem. Actually, if more people opt for Class A and less medical tourism by super wealthy foreginers, the situation would be better.
But you need an integrated shield plan to defray such cost.
B) Intend to get married and have kids. AFAIK, AVIVA shield plan has some discount over a couple + kids Medishield plan.
CORRECTION: As pointed out by a forumer, Medishield does NOT cover deluvery charges. Instead, your child's compulsory premium for Medishield (Since 2007) is waived until he/she is 20. Please check with AVIVA for exact details:
https://www.aviva.com.sg/life-and-health/for-individuals/health.html
6) ADDON: You need to be in SAF in order to have this SAF Group term plan. So if you opt out during BMT, your sergant will check with your parents in light of high profile training deaths over the past few years. If you opt this out after ORD, not sure if you need to wait for reservist being called up before you can join back or not.
7) Bonus: Your wife & child gets to enjoy this term plan as well because they are your dependents.
8) One major downside of this plan is that there is a known cap of payout over a single incident.
So that won't affect in a normal fatal traffic accident, BUT it could be an issue when there is a terrorist attack like 9/11 or Bali Bombings OR simply an aircraft / Natural disaster.
However, other private insurance may choose not to pay out in the event of such incident happens.
In short:
1) Never ever buy insurance other than SAF Group Term. They cover the most and cheapest in the market.
LAGI NEVER buy Whole Life or even ILP, who make only the company rich but you poor. These money are better of investing in stocks or at least fixed deposit or buying luxury to reward of tour hardwork.
2) Hospitalization (Except delivery) fee are insured in 2 ways:
- Loss of Income
- Hospitalization bills
The hospitalization income plan is useful only for self-employed or odd-job / free-lance workers.
Hospitalization bills are covered largely by subsidy & Medishield / Medishield Life (From nov 15) before Medisave / Cash are being used.
3) Critical Illness can consider as SAF term rider (Until 65) OR external insurance depending on your preference.
Should you choose external ones, it might be prudent to defer until you have a stable income instead.
4) Only Travel, Mortgage & Fire as well as Motor insurance is something you will buy in future should you travel, buy a house or buy a car / motorbike respectively on top of SAF Term, Medishield Life & Critical Illness & Hospitalization income (only for self-employed / odd-job or free-lance)
5) Next time do opt out of DPS as it is well covered by SAF Term Plan & Eldershield once u reached 40 because for someone to get claim for Eldershield, he/she probably also got a lump sum for their TPD coverage by SAF Group Term. Thesr money can better off earn interest from CPF & pay for your mortgage instead.
I an speaking as a ORD personnel.
