Most importantly buy education plan. Otherwise next time no money go uni.
I disagree. Claiming the government’s Child Development Account’s matching funds is important, but the “education plans” that insurance companies sell are particularly awful right now. You’re better off saving diligently and prudently investing in the few long-term, low cost vehicles routinely discussed in this forum, perhaps with a little adjustment to your portfolio allocations as you get closer to the child’s university enrollment.
Hospitalization is the most important. The rest are subjectively decided based on your preference and/or risk tolerance.
To be specific, here are the Integrated Shield plans I currently like. The respective carriers’ lowest cost optional riders with these plans are also reasonable to buy. For Singaporean newborns an “as charged” public hospital B1 ward plan is defensible as an insurance necessity, and the rest are insurance luxuries. For non-citizen newborns a public hospital A ward plan is defensible as an insurance necessity, and higher cost plans are luxuries. Minimum entry age is 15 days, but before that age you can work with your carrier’s agent to get an application ready for earliest submission.
1. Public hospital B1 ward: Aviva MyShield Plan 3, although Great Eastern’s Supreme Health B Plus is still pretty good. These B1 plans are for Singaporean citizens. Aviva’s plan works for PRs too, but no one is instantly born a Singapore PR (as far as I know), and these plans aren’t available at all to foreigners.
2. Public hospital A ward: lots of solid choices here including (in alphabetical order) AIA, Aviva, Great Eastern, Prudential, and Raffles Shield. Basically everyone except NTUC and AXA has something competitive to offer in this segment. A few of these plans (Prudential’s, for example) are available to foreigners.
3. Private hospital, narrow panel: Raffles Shield A with the Raffles Hospital Option.
4. Private hospital, wider panel: AIA.
AIA’s plans have a unique feature: no waiting period for coverage of undiagnosed/undetected congenital abnormalities. That’s pretty interesting especially when you’re insuring a newborn, but there are other factors to consider.
In Singapore, unfortunately, there’s currently no practical way to insure a newborn with preexisting medical conditions except, for Singaporean citizen newborns, up to MediShield Life levels. Add this problem to the list of reasons why Singapore’s birth rate is low.
