New AIA Insurance Covers Depression, Schizophrenia & OCD – But Is It Enough?

As everyone knows, psychological sickness is closely stigmatised in Singapore. It takes a number of braveness to hunt medical assist, and medical assist will be hellishly costly, particularly in the event you go the non-public route. And lord assist your profession if phrase of your situation ever will get out to your boss.

So once I heard about this new AIA insurance coverage plan that covers psychological diseases like melancholy, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive dysfunction, I used to be legit excited. And that’s not one thing I really feel about any insurance coverage coverage, ever.

Naturally, I wished to know if it’s really a viable resolution for these with psychological diseases… or if it’s only a massive ol’ advertising and marketing gimmick.

First, a short introduction to the brand new AIA insurance coverage plan

AIA’s new coverage is known as “AIA Past Crucial Care”, and it primarily focuses on offering protection for crucial diseases corresponding to most cancers, stroke and coronary heart illness.

Tacked onto that’s extra protection for five psychological diseases:

• Main depressive dysfunction (MDD)
• Schizophrenia
• Bipolar dysfunction
• Obsessive compulsive dysfunction (OCD)
• Tourette syndrome

Observe that the AIA insurance coverage coverage isn’t a medical health insurance plan precisely, nevertheless it’s meant to cowl the gaps present in typical medical health insurance.

For instance, all Singaporeans are insured by MediShield Life and/or an Built-in Defend plan. This may cowl hospitalisation and medical prices which can be incurred when you bear remedy for an sickness. You’re typically lined just for medical payments, however you don’t get any compensation for, say, your lack of earnings when you’re unable to work.

Crucial sickness insurance coverage, however, merely pays out a lump sum when you get identified. What you need to do with that wad of money is as much as you. Whether or not you employ it to hunt remedy or to journey the world, the insurer doesn’t care.

The distinction between AIA’s insurance coverage plan and different crucial sickness plans available on the market is that it additionally pays you a lump sum in case you are identified with one of many 5 psychological situations. This quantity is smaller than what you’d get in the event you bought most cancers, nevertheless it’s vital nonetheless.

Does this imply you will get insured if in case you have a psychological sickness prognosis?

Unhealthy information for these already identified with a pre-existing situation. No, you’ll be able to’t.

Though technically AIA does cowl psychological diseases, a much less deceptive method to put it’s: AIA gives protection for future psychological diseases that you simply develop later in life. As with all different crucial sickness insurance policies, the purpose is to get insured when you nonetheless have a clear invoice of psychological and bodily well being.

For those who’ve been identified with any of the lined diseases earlier than – be it MDD or most cancers – you’ll both be flat-out rejected, or your coverage might be amended to exclude that specific sickness.

However in the event you’re nonetheless within the pink of well being, simply nervous about falling sick sooner or later, then yeah, you might be completely the precise particular person to get this.

How a lot does this AIA insurance coverage coverage price?

AIA gave us a pattern insurance coverage premium citation of $2,141.82 a 12 months (after low cost, standard worth $2,379.80) for an “best” coverage purchaser: male, age 35, non-smoker, works as an accountant.

Observe the low-risk profile, proper all the way down to the conservative job. You’d most likely get quoted rather more in the event you’re, say, a 53-year-old employee in a cigarette manufacturing unit…

Anyway, paying this premium yearly will get Mr Accountant an insured quantity of $100,000 and a coverage time period of fifty years.

Which means if he will get a prognosis for one of many lined crucial diseases earlier than he turns 85, he will get $100,000 as a lump sum payout. If he will get identified with one of many 5 psychological diseases, he will get 20% of that, which is $20,000.

However what if nothing occurs? What in the event you pay 1000’s of {dollars} a 12 months however survive until outdated age unscathed by illness? Rattling lugi, proper?

Nicely, AIA has a “a reimbursement assure” which makes it extra palatable. After your coverage expires, you get again the whole premiums you paid, minus no matter you’ve claimed. You don’t earn any curiosity on this quantity, so it should positively have been eroded by inflation, nevertheless it’s higher than nothing.

A better have a look at AIA’s protection for crucial sickness vs. psychological sickness

Now that we’ve bought the preliminaries out of the best way, I’m going to take a better have a look at the psychological sickness profit, which is the distinctive promoting level of the insurance coverage coverage.

First, let’s evaluate the variety of diseases. AIA covers the total 37 industry-recognised crucial diseases after which some. For psychological diseases, nevertheless, solely 5 situations are lined, although there are a lot of different financially damaging psychological diseases, corresponding to extreme anxiousness issues and alcoholism.

If AIA can insure you towards each bodily sickness beneath the solar, then why not do the identical for psychological sickness too?

Moreover, the payout for a psychological sickness prognosis is barely ⅕ of what you’d get with a bodily sickness. That may make enterprise sense, nevertheless it doesn’t make sense to me. I imply, the monetary price of schizophrenia, for instance, isn’t trivial.

One other disadvantage is you could solely get 1 payout in your lifetime for every psychological sickness. Once more, not best to me, since sure psychological well being situations will be liable to relapses even after full restoration. For those who can declare greater than as soon as for a stroke, why can’t you do the identical for psychological sickness?

And though you’ll be able to declare for greater than 1 psychological sickness – you already know, like in the event you suay suay kena each melancholy and schizophrenia – AIA imposes a interval of three years earlier than you will get a payout for the 2nd sickness. Provided that the interval is just one 12 months for bodily diseases, I don’t see why there’s a double normal right here.

Earlier than you flame me for not understanding how insurance coverage works…

Look, I recognise that these measures are most likely completely justified from a enterprise/risk-pooling standpoint. AIA isn’t a charity. It must be worthwhile.

However from a client viewpoint, I don’t see why we needs to be content material with this double normal between protecting bodily vs. psychological diseases. We’ve all learn the information. Psychological sickness is extraordinarily commonplace in Singapore. So why is getting handled and insured for it nonetheless so laborious?

Don’t get me mistaken, I feel that AIA is certainly a pioneer on this area. Previous to this, you’d be hard-pressed to seek out ANY insurance coverage payouts for psychological diseases in any respect.

However we’re a protracted, good distance from actually normalizing psychological sickness. Within the US, there’s a legislation for insurers to be sure that their psychological healthcare protection is the same as that of their bodily healthcare protection. I’m certain the precise implementation is way from best, however I feel that’s one thing we should always aspire in direction of.

Additionally, the US parity legislation hasn’t induced a mass shutdown of insurance coverage corporations. So equal protection should be economically attainable (if not sustainable), proper?

To their credit score, even AIA recognises that their coverage is barely the “first step” and that “extra will be completed” (quote from their press launch).

That’s gotta be higher than that NTUC Earnings spokesman who defended the shortage of sufficient insurance coverage protection for psychological sickness with the equal of a shrug. (That was in 2013; hopefully issues have modified over there by now!)

Nearly as an apology for not offering higher protection, AIA additionally features a few fringe advantages for policyholders, corresponding to their way of life rewards programme AIA Vitality and AIA Crucial Help hotline without spending a dime well being recommendation and suggestions.

Recognize the gesture and all, however that’s no substitute for, you already know, precise insurance coverage.

However you already know what? I hope that AIA’s insurance coverage coverage is a hit, if solely in order that different insurers would sit up and take discover – and begin providing higher insurance coverage protection for psychological diseases.

What else do you assume will be completed about psychological healthcare in Singapore? Inform us within the feedback.