Important insurance Coverage For Newborns

[iceblendedchoc]

For private hospitals for child, when they cannot handle the complications, they will still route you back to KKH eventually

maternity coverage for mummy saved us a ton of money, my third born has various health issues when she was born and probably not insurable or there will be loading and exclusions

 

[rubicon]

read through all the posts...so which insurance to get if my goal is only for tail risk ie to insure against treatment specifically for rare childhood cancers?

 

[BBCWatcher]

read through all the posts...so which insurance to get if my goal is only for tail risk ie to insure against treatment specifically for rare childhood cancers?

Unfortunately insurance products have shortcomings and gaps, for example if the rare childhood cancer is congenital and undiagnosed/unknown at least before policy issuance. What compromises are you willing to make, and what’s your budget? Do you want coverage for the world’s best cancer care or only Singapore’s best? Do you want to try to cover a newborn prior to age 15 days? Only cancer coverage, so you’ll handle big medical bills arising from some other ailment the child may have?

 

[rubicon]

Unfortunately insurance products have shortcomings and gaps, for example if the rare childhood cancer is congenital and undiagnosed/unknown at least before policy issuance. What compromises are you willing to make, and what’s your budget? Do you want coverage for the world’s best cancer care or only Singapore’s best? Do you want to try to cover a newborn prior to age 15 days? Only cancer coverage, so you’ll handle big medical bills arising from some other ailment the child may have?

yes only childhood cancer, for 18 months toddler. Singapore's best.

 

[BBCWatcher]

yes only childhood cancer, for 18 months toddler. Singapore's best.

OK, as already reported upthread the 2 best rated pediatric hospitals in Singapore are KKH and NUH. Moreover, SGH typically wins the top rating among all hospitals in Singapore (and in the region) when assessing hospitals across the board, not solely for pediatric medicine. SGH is home to the National Cancer Centre.

All Integrated Shield plans cover cancer-related care at all 3 of these hospitals as long as the cancer is unknown/undiagnosed — that it's not a preexisting condition when the policy is issued. However, these plans vary somewhat in how much cancer-related coverage they provide particularly when you venture into drugs that are not on Singapore's Cancer Drug List (CDL). It's fairly easy to compare Integrated Shield plans' cancer-related provisions to see which ones offer the highest annual limits for non-CDL drugs and related services, and ideally without sublimits such as monthly limits or overall rider limits. Please note these coverage terms are subject to change, and they did change across the board as recently as 2024. If you feel that's still not enough coverage, you can explore other policies such as Singlife's Cancer Cover Plus II and/or ECI/CI policies to see if they offer real coverage benefits at a price you're willing to pay.

I posed the questions I did because I don't think a cancer-specific policy makes much sense unless there's no better option. As one of many examples, Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) isn't cancer but is very expensive to treat. Zolgensma is currently the definitive treatment for SMA, but it reportedly costs S$2.4 million in Singapore, plus additional related medical services. There's no subsidy, and even if an Integrated Shield plan covers the therapy (big if since SMA is probably a preexisting condition) that S$2.4 million cost blows through Integrated Shield coverage limits/sublimits. Cancer Cover Plus II won't cover it either; it's not cancer. An ECI or CI policy might, although that's "an interesting question" and still subject to preexisting condition problems. But not many people have S$2.4M+ of ECI or CI coverage.

No perfect answers here, unfortunately.

Only half joking, if your family happens to be living in another country with excellent medical coverage for all residents (including coverage for Zolgensma and other extremely expensive treatments), that'd help.