The Integrated Shield Plan is broken
For years, insurers have followed the path of least resistance – raise premiums or amend policy terms to suit their financial interests. Policyholders' protests and concerns be damned. All in the name of sustainability; ironically, sometimes with the encouragement or tacit approval of the government.
The introduction of co-payments under IP policy riders (originally sold on the basis of eliminating co-payments under the main policy) is a case in point.
The supporting narrative used by both insurers and the government is that claims are much higher than anticipated for a variety of reasons: high healthcare cost inflation, rapidly ageing population (didn't they know?) and some abuses by doctors as well as patients.
Our insurers have obviously made wrong actuarial claims assumptions. Should they not take more responsibility for their mistakes? Why pass the buck to policyholders? In what other business can a company ask their customers to pay for their mistakes?
If insurers need to make a course correction, they should apply their new rules/premiums to new policies. Many existing policyholders have paid premiums for years or decades. But now we are trapped; we cannot switch insurers due to our age. Insurers know.
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My family is a case in point.
My five family members have been insured under Income Insurance's IncomeShield policies (with riders) for more than two decades. Until about two years ago we had never made a claim. In March 2025, when I renewed, the total premiums for my own Enhanced IncomeShield Preferred policies (main policy and rider) rose 48.3 per cent while the premium for my plus rider policy jumped 70.7 per cent.
Over the last three years, my Enhanced IncomeShield Preferred premium more than doubled and the premium for the rider jumped 144.5 per cent. This is after being required since 2021 to make co-payments on the rider in the event of a claim.
Much of the talk of sustainability seems to have been confined to concerns about the financial interests of insurers. But many policyholders have already reached or passed their end point. As has been reported, some had to abandon their policies while others were forced to downgrade their coverage due to huge premiums increases – sadly just at the time when they need the coverage most.
Singapore's Integrated Shield insurance scheme is clearly broken. It is imperative that the government takes the lead to study how reforms can be effected to ensure long-suffering policyholders can in fact be spared their detriment.
Ho Swee Huat
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