What my father's illness has taught me

My father passed away from Liver Cirrhosis when I was 21. It was a painful episode to see him suffer. I always see him as a tough family man, however the illness showed me the vulnerability side of him which I had never seen in him before. He was only 55.

It is common that parents of my era do not have insurance let alone an insurance which covers critical illness or death. My father was the sole breadwinner of the family, my mother a housewife, and I have an older brother and sister. My father lost the battle to liver failure after almost 1.month of hospitalisation. Looking back. we were fortunate in a sense that all 3 of us, siblings had completed our studies and were ready to enter the workforce. My mother would not have that financial burden to pay for our higher education school fees and our daily living expenses. It was much later did I realise the importance of getting a critical illness and death coverage. Had my father been diagnosed with Liver failure when my siblings and myself were much younger, and with him unable to work for a prolong period of time and eventually death, my mother would have struggled financially and we would have most probably need to rely on charity from our relatives to survive. In-addition, we only found out the flat we stayed in was not held in joint tenancy, that is another seperate topic of its own which I can explain in detailed in future post.

And of course, even if my father at that time had purchased a life insurance, the pay-out given, though will not make him live but it will enable us, his loved ones to continue living.

I have also personally know of friends who were diagnosed with Critical illness and they were not able to work for a prolong period of time. Savings get depleted and they have to turn to relatives and friends to borrow money, or worse, turned to crowd funding. Money for seeking alternative treatments, money for alternative care arrangement and money for daily living expenses. These financial obligations can bring a toll to the family.

GLARING GAPS

Statistics have shown the fact that many Singaporeans lack critical illness coverage and there is a huge protection gap to be covered, you can read the news article here. It is still an education and awareness process that is constantly a Work in Progress for many Financial Consultants out there like myself.

We know Insurance is one way to get ourselves financially protected against a range of unpredictable events such as sudden death, treatment of critical illness, sudden loss of income from an illness or total permanent disability. It is in fact, not a luxury to have it but a necessity.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Having a critical illness plan in place, when diagnosed with a critical illness and with the payout given, one can choose to seek alternative treatment, arrange for alternative care or ensuring the dependants can carry on living without compromising the current quality of life. The rule of thumb one should be looking at for Critical Illness coverage should be 5x of the annual income.

Afterall, you would not purchase a car without the airbag function or board a plane that is not fitted with oxygen masks. If a life, without a life insurance, it is not called a life. So make your life worth protecting today.

Find out more about Life Insurance Planning at https://www.lia.org.sg/consumers/getting-started/

Opinion(s) expressed are solely in my personal capacity and do not express the views or opinions of Prudential and does not represent any professional advice in the capacity as a PACS representative.

335/12Jun21

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