First, you have to pay RM50 service tax on each of your credit card, then 5% of on any gain from selling your property under the Real Propety Gain tax (RPGT), and you have to start paying close attention to your car’s maintainance and its road worthiness under the revised National Automotive Policy (NAP)

The RM50 service tax on credit care

The RM50 service tax is now a hotly discussed topic where understandably, no one likes it!  If you owned multiple cards and carry any outstanding, it is wise to consolidate the debt to a single card via balance transfer.  While you do that, remember not to use that card anymore because all your payment will first goes to the ‘old debt’ and then only any leftover goes to your ‘new debt’.  If there is no payment goes to the new debt, it will sit there and happily collecting 18% interest rate.

If you have multiple cards and with not outstanding balance, stop chasing points, cut them down to one.

To be sure, the implementation details are still sketchy at this moment but it is unlikely that the government will reverse its decision nor the banks will directly absorb the RM50 for the card holders.

The unfair property gain tax

For most folks, RM50 tax is nothing comparing with the newly announced 5% Real Property Gain Tax (RPGT) applicable to all properties’ transaction.  Exemption is only given to transaction that involves direct family members or first time sellers.  Nothing we can do about that, sad!

The disappointed revised National Automative Policy (NAP)

Many consumers are disappointed with the just announced revised NAP.  The desperate hope of lower car prices is once again crashed and not only that, maintaining a car is going to be more expensive.  Starting 2010, 2nd hand part parts no longer can be imported - expect to pay higher price for parts, if not, buy the most popular car that parts are easily available i.e national cars.  But that is more, with the gradual implementation of Vehicle End of Life policy - vehicles older than 15 years must proven to be road worthiness, government wants you to buy new car.

What next?

In the not too distant future, it is likely that Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be implemented to reduce prolonged budget deficit. Guess what, another 5%.

Thought it did not met my criteria, I am however attracted to Prudential HSI simply because it lowest lifetime limit is RM500,000 and it goes all the way to RM1.50 million.  However, on the other hand, I have reservation on its annual limit which starts as low as RM50,000 to the maximum RM150,000.

Thinking for the worst, I am setting RM100,000 as the minimum annual limit, based onaverage treatment cost for any cancer.

Then come the question should I go for higher lifetime limit such as RM1.50 million, after some thinking, I concluded that No. My reasons are simple, such high limit will be most beneficial if every year for the next 10 years I have MAJOR medication needs - that every yaer I am having a serious and costly medical event. If this likely to happen? I like to think no. Of course, I am also reluctant to pay the high premium that comes alone.

By placing priority on high annual limit rather then high lifetime limit, I am making a assumption that at most, I will have 2-3 major medical conditions throught out my life and therefore hight annual limit which I need now is far more important than high lifetime limit with low annual limit.

Here are a SELECTED PLAN from MAA, Great Eastern Assurance and Pridential for a quick comparison:

I am now zooming down to MAA & GEA.  The advantage of MAA over GEA is that it does not have any co-payment (co-insurance) - I don’t have to pay a single cent if I keep to my room and board limit, whereas for GEA, I have to pay 10% or max RM500 for any treatment even if I stayed within the R&B limit. MAA also offers coverge up to 79 year old - a useful feature considering that Malaysia average life span is 72 for men and 74 for women, and these are the times that one probably needs medical attention the most.

Premium

When come to insurance premium, it all depends on how old are you now and more or less are in the same price band.  However, that doesn’t mean that since the premium is about the same for all companies, you can just buy from any of them!  Always check the annual and lifetime limit, terms on renewal, any co-insurance, etc.

Here are a quick comparison:

Great Eastern Assurance’s premium is lower than MAA, however, by factor in the 10% or RM500 co-insurance, the actual cost is higher than MAA.  Again, it is very clear that you get what you pay for.

What?  You do not have a medical insurance (Hospitalization and Surgical Insurance-HSI)?

Well, I was having the assumption that my 2 critical illness policies are sufficient to protect me form any eventual ‘medical’ events.  But may be more to do with the fact that I am growing older, I see a need to get myself a HSI.

Specifically, my plan is to use the critical illness policy for extended out-patient care, and the HSI to cover hospitalization cost.

When I started asking people about their HSI, as expected, most of them don’t know much about what they have bought.  They just knew that they are ‘covered’.  But what really surprised me was that generally people did not shop around and compare pricing and benefits of the many HSI out there. I begged people do more ‘research’ and price shopping on their new Plasma TV, which costs only a fraction of the HSI policy premium.  Think about it!

To be sure, I am not looking for the BEST HSI, but rather one that suites me.

What I am looking for are

1. A stand alone policy
2. Guaranteed renewability
3. Cashless
4. Advanced age coverage

Why stand alone policy? I already have both life & critical illness policies and what I need now is just simple plain vanilla HSI.  Also, since the medical insurance premium will increase over the year, a stand alone policy would let me know the actual cost of the insurance.  There are HSI that only available as raider (add-on to other policy)

Why guaranteed renewability? Because I want to enjoy a continuous coverage irregardless of my medical claims history - that means irregardless how many times I claimed the benefits as long as it is within the annual or life time limit, the insurance company can not rejects my renewal though now they discovered I am such a ‘money lossing’ customer.  Not all HSI are renewal guaranteed.

Why cashless? Simple, I neither  want to pay any cash nor chasing for the reimbursement later.

Why advanced age coverage? Because I like to think that I have long way to go and I want to have the necessary protections where I am likely need them the most.

So far so good?

But when I started information gathering, I was confounded by a difficult choice and how to make sense of it?  The problem is when I am only given a choice of high annual limit vs high life time limit, how should I make my choice (generally high annual limit and high life time limit are mutually exclusive - you can’t have them both)?

…… to be continued