Eldershield is a severe disability scheme that provides a monthly payout. It is for people age 40 and above and is an opt-out program. It is also referred to as long term care as the benefit payout can span throughout one's lifetime.
The benefit is nothing to shout about - it is either $300/month for 5 years or $400/month for 6 years (applicable for those who turned 40 after September 2007).
The criteria to qualify for the benefit is when one is not able to perform any 3 out of the 6 activities of daily living (ADLs). These are:
- Washing
- Feeding
- Dressing
- Toileting
- Transferring
- Mobility
Risk factors that you need to be aware of:
- Singaporeans are living longer but will spend 8 years in ill health or disabled (3 Dec 2007, The Straits Times)
- Younger people are getting old people's diseases (16 Mar 2010, The Sunday Times)
- The number of cases for dementia will more than double to 45,000 by 2020 (4 Mar 2010, The Straits Times)
- Incident rate for common illnesses leading to long term care:
- heart disease - 23.6% (MOH 2009 statistics, principal causes of death)
- hypertension - 24.9% (MOH 2004 statistics, disease burden among 18-69 years)
- cardio vascular diseases - 8.0% (MOH 2009 statistics,principal causes of death) - Based on the experience of other advanced countries, such as the UK, men and women have a 35% and 45% chance of them being disabled in their lifetime respectively (source: MOH website)
- Cost of hiring a maid - close to $1000/mth!
- Cost of private nursing home ranges between 3-figure to 4-figure sum per month (go to MOH website for more detailed information)
- Miscellaneous costs of medical aids, treatments, alternative therapies, supplements
1. They feel that they don't need it now as they are healthy (can you tell for how long?)
2. They want to wait till they are older (who can guarantee that you can still qualify for cover?)
3. They want to conserve their medisave (to serve what purpose?)
By the way, do you know you can only do 3 things with your medisave?
1. Withdraw it based on the daily specified limit for hospitalization and certain conditions if you do not have a hospital & surgical plan
2. Use it to enhance your hospital & surgical plan and eldershield benefits
3. When you die, your beneficiaries will 'inherit' this money
Let's not be penny wise pound foolish. It is the right thing to do to upgrade your eldershield plan. Do it for yourself. Do it for your loved ones.
Read more about Aviva's MyCare Plus, the new enhanced Eldershield plan that was recently launched in my next blog post.
