ING Life Major Medical Cover: Why you should recommend it to your clie

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In this article ING Life explains its major medical and why advisers should recommend it to their clients.

Saturday, April 10th 2010, 9:26AM

The problem
At ING Life, we believe health insurance is particularly important as health care services continue to become more sophisticated and expensive.  In addition, good as New Zealand's public health system is, it suffers funding problems issues which are likely to increase as our population ages.  This lack of funding creates two main problems, scarce medical resources (leading to waiting lists and delays in treatment) and limited funding of drugs and treatments (PHARMAC subsidises less than half the medicines approved by MEDSAFE and sometimes then only if the treatment is provided by the public system).  Most clients therefore need medical insurance to fund these two very serious shortcomings in the public system.  

Cover for non-funded drugs
We believe all of us should have access to the best possible treatment when we are sick.  For this reason our medical insurance cover, unlike most others, does not limit drugs and treatments to those funded by the Government (PHARMAC). When it comes to solving the two main problems, ING Life's product ticks both boxes!

No right to unilaterally change policy wordings (benefits)
We believe that as long as our clients pay their premiums we should not be able to change their benefits without their permission (something other companies can do!).  After all, wouldn't you want the certainty of knowing that what you are paying a premium for will be there for you when you need it?

No "dollar swapping"
At ING Life we also believe it is inefficient to ask someone else to pay our small medical bills as this simply forces premiums up too much.  Accordingly, ING Life's medical insurance does not cover regular visits to the doctor, optometrist or dentist, for instance.  We believe that it is only necessary to insure the larger medical bills that come along from time to time and by doing this we are able to keep premiums as low as possible.

Significant benefit limits
When it comes to serious ill-health however, we believe that clients should have access to very large amounts of money to pay for medical procedures.  For this reason our Major Medical policy provides the following very generous benefit limits.  We will pay up to:

• $200,000, for each surgery (there is no annual limit or limit to the number of surgeries);
• $200,000 per annum for non-surgical hospitalisation;
• $200,000 per annum for certain major diagnostic procedures;

Overseas treatment
ING Life's medical cover also offers superior overseas benefits:

• We cover the costs of private medical expenses incurred in Australia (up to the reasonable and customary New Zealand costs for the same treatment), regardless of whether the client is permanently resident in Australia or not; and
• Provide up to $200,000 per annum for overseas treatments if the same treatment is not available in New Zealand within 6 months due to a lack of resources.

Waiver of premium on disability
Clients who suffer ill-health and become disabled are very likely to claim on their medical policy.  The last thing they need is for their medical cover to lapse because they can't afford to pay the premiums, or, to be forced to spend their limited income protection benefits on premiums.  ING Life clients have the ability to protect their Major Medical policy from an inability to pay their premiums should they become disabled, by taking waiver of premium benefits.

No exclusion of some "biggies"
Finally, while all treatment must be medically necessary, we don't do some things common with other companies, for example we don't have blanket exclusions for:

• Any congenital conditions (we cover congenital conditions which do not manifest themselves within the first 4 months of life)
• Breast Reduction Surgery
• New treatments not "approved" by us
• Treatment for obesity
• Renal dialysis

In summary, there are many very important reasons (major benefits not offered by any other policy) to offer your client ING Life's Major Medical policy and very few reasons (major benefits not covered by ING Life) to sell any other policy.

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