A non-participating term life insurance policy, PRUActive Term provides flexibility to adjust your coverage as your needs change and to select a policy and premium term best suited for you.
It covers Death, Total and Permanent Disability (TPD), and Terminal Illness (TI), and offers the option to add on various Critical Illness Riders.
Here’s our review.
My Review of Prudential’s PRUActive Term
Term life policies are usually the most affordable forms of life insurance and are generally no-frills products that provide pure protection only.
Therefore, one of the top considerations when buying a term plan is its affordability as coverage tends to be similar (i.e. Death, TI, & TPD). Unfortunately, PRUActive Term loses out significantly here as compared to its competitors.
PRUActive Term | China Taiping i-Protect | Singlife Elite Term | Tokio Marine Term Assure (II) | Manulife ManuProtect Term (II) | NTUC TermLife Solitaire | AIA Secure Flexi Term^ | |
Annual Premium (SGD$) | 685 | 498 | 535 | 545 | 637 | 733 | 536 |
Total Premium (SGD$) | 27,400 | 19,920 | 21,400 | 21,800 | 25,480 | 29,320 | 21,440 |
Indicative premiums generated based on 30-year-old male, non-smoker, $500K sum assured with policy and premium term of 40 years with the exception of AIA Secure Flexi Term, which is for a premium and policy term of 35 years.
Although PRUActive Term provides flexibility in terms of its range of policy and premium terms as well as the option to increase coverage, this comes at the expense of cost.
Many other term plans offer similar flexibility with additional features like convertible and renewable options, but at a much lower cost.
With no conversion option on the plan, if you’re looking to buy a term plan for affordability reasons with the aim of converting it to a permanent policy, like a whole life plan, PRUActive Term would not be suitable for you.
Instead, consider Tokio Marine’s Term Assure (II), Manulife’s ManuProtect Term (II), or Singlife’s Elite Term.
Otherwise, China Taiping’s i-Protect offers one of the lowest premiums for term plans in Singapore.
I feel that the flexibility does not justify its higher cost.
Therefore, it might be worthwhile taking a look at other term policies and comparing their features and prices to find the best one for you.
This is especially important since you’re about to commit to an insurance plan for the next 20 to 30 years, and you don’t want to make a financial decision that you’ll regret years down the road.
And based on working with hundreds of our readers over the past many years, this happens more often than you think.
Once you’ve explored possible alternatives, you should consider getting a second opinion from an unbiased financial advisor to determine if Prudential’s PRUActive Term is the best term plan for you.
Because what’s best for me, might not be the best for you. And what’s best for someone else might not be right for us.
If you’d like a second opinion, we partner with MAS-licensed financial advisors who are happy to assist.
They’ll provide you with a comparison of the plans available and give balanced advice to help you find a plan tailored for your needs.
Click here for a free non-obligatory chat.
Now let’s dive deep into what the PRUActive Term has to offer.
Criteria
- Minimum sum assured of 100k
- Policy entry age between 18 and 75
Product Features
Policy Terms
With a wide range of policy terms from 10 to 82 years, you can choose a term suitable for your needs.
Premium Payment Terms & Options
The policy is only available as a regular premium policy with the option to select a premium payment term between 5 to 82 years. Payment frequency modes include monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annually. Selected policy and premium terms do not have to be the same.
Although there is no minimum premium payment, there is a minimum sum assured. Factors like your age, gender, sum assured, chosen policy and premium term, and many others, affect the premium amount.
The following table breaks down the premium amount by premium frequency and term for a 30-year old male, non-smoker that opts for a $500K coverage with a 40-year policy term and no additional benefits.
Premium Term | ||||
10 years | 20 years | 30 years | 40 years | |
Annual Premium (SGD$) | 2,000 | 1,175 | 885 | 685 |
Total Premium (SGD$) | 20,000 | 23,500 | 26,550 | 27,400 |
Protection
PRUActive Term covers Death, TPD, and TI. TI and TPD benefits are accelerated, meaning any TI/TPD claims will be subtracted from your policy’s sum assured and might result in policy termination if it equals the death sum assured.
Death Benefit
Death benefit covers you up to when you’re 100 years old or the end of your policy term, whichever is first. Upon death, the sum assured for death will be paid out with any other applicable incremental amount. The policy terminates following a death claim.
Terminal Illness (TI) Benefit
When the life assured is diagnosed with a terminal illness, the policy pays the amount indicated in the policy contract and the TI benefit ends.
The following also occurs
- If the death benefit is equal to the TI benefit, the policy and all its other benefits will terminate.
- If the death benefit is higher than the TI benefit, the death benefit coverage will be reduced to the difference between the death benefit and TI benefit.
- If the TPD benefit is higher than the TI benefit, the TPD benefit coverage will be reduced to the difference between the TPD benefit and TI benefit.
- If the TPD benefit is less than that of the TI benefit, coverage for the former will terminate once a TI claim is successfully made.
Total & Permanent Disability (TPD) Benefit
TPD benefit ends on the policy anniversary of the year you turn 70 or when your policy term ends, whichever comes first. Payout will only be made for 6 months (deferment period) after the disability has been confirmed by any registered medical practitioner.
The deferment period does not apply in the following circumstances:
- Total and permanent blindness in both eyes
- Loss of any 2 limbs above the wrist or ankle
- Total and permanent blindness in 1 eye and loss of any limb at or above the wrist or ankle
The TPD benefit pays up to $2,000,000 for the first lump sum payout. If your disability benefit exceeds S$2,000,000, the balance sum assured will be paid out in a lump sum depending on whichever occurs first:
- 12 months from the date of the first lump sum payment; or
- upon death
Where TPD benefit exceeds $2,000,000, if the life assured stops being totally and permanently disabled before the balance sum assured above the initial $2,000,000 is due, the balance will not be paid.
For a disability benefit claim to be made, the life assured must be determined to be totally and permanently disabled by a registered medical practitioner.
Life Assured Age | Total and permanent disability occurs when the life assured: |
65 and below |
|
66 to 70 |
|
Additional Features & Benefits
Incremental Sum Assured
If you opt for this benefit when purchasing your policy, your coverage will increase by an incremental rate of 1 – 10% of your basic coverage annually without having to undergo a medical examination.
The incremental rate is selected by you at policy purchase. This allows you to customise your plan to grow with you as you age and your financial commitments increase.
The increase only applies to the death benefit and any add-on critical illness rider, and commences from the 2nd policy year onwards.
As sum assured increases, the premium also increases depending on the age of the life assured at each increment.
An incremental amount will be added to the death coverage only:
- Up to the policy anniversary before the life assured’s 65 birthday
- If the remaining premium term is 5 years and above
- If the remaining policy term is 10 years and above
- For 20 years maximum
Once policy starts, the incremental rate cannot be changed. However, this benefit can be stopped anytime you wish, but once stopped, cannot be reactivated.
This benefit cannot be applied if the policy was purchased on sub-standard terms or if any successful claims on terminal illness, disability, or other add-on riders have been made. The benefit also ends on the date of diagnosis for any of the above claims.
2X Death Benefit
For those who did not purchase the policy with Incremental Sum Assured benefit or who stopped it, you can still opt to increase the sum assured of your death benefit by any amount above $100,000 but less than 2 times its original amount whenever, providing that the following conditions are met:
- It has been 12 months since the cover start date of your policy
- Increase of at least SGD$100,000 for each application
- The remaining policy term is at least 6 years
You can also choose to reduce the sum assured. This will be effected on any Incremental Sum Assured benefit first before the basic sum assured. Premiums will be reduced as well. If any reduction has been made, death coverage can only be increased again 12 months from the effective date of sum assured reduction.
Add-On Riders
PRUActive term offers various critical illness (CI) riders that you can add to your policy.
Crisis Care II
This rider provides coverage of up to $3,600,000 on 36 CI conditions. Incremental sum assured benefit can also be applied to this rider.
Generally for CI riders, if the insurer experiences an increase in the number of CI claims, they have the right to adjust the premiums.
However, for Crisis Care II there is a guaranteed premium rate, which means your premium will not change throughout the entire premium payment period.
The premium payment term for the benefit ranges from 5 to 82 years, while its benefit duration ranges from 10 – 82 years. The rider’s premium term can be longer or shorter than the premium term of PRUActive Term.
Crisis Care II also provides coverage of up to $250K for selected diabetic complications. The exact terms and conditions applicable to diabetic complications can be found in the policy document.
Early Stage Crisis Cover
This rider covers early to intermediate stage medical conditions with a sum assured of up to $250,000.
There is also a special benefit that pays out for Angioplasty and Other Invasive Treatment for Coronary Artery and Diabetic Complications, payable only if coverage is still in effect and has not been fully claimed.
Depending on the severity of the diagnosed critical illness, the claim amount might vary.
If a successful claim is made on the 50% Severity Payout, meaning that the severity of the critical illness results in a payout of 50% of the sum assured, all future premiums for the rider will be waived, but coverage will continue until the termination of the benefit.
Early Stage Crisis Waiver & Crisis Waiver III
Under the Early Stage Crisis Waiver benefit, upon diagnosis of Early Stage Medical Conditions, premiums for covered benefits will be waived for 5 years.
After which, premium payment for covered benefits, except Early Stage Crisis Waiver, will resume.
It also allows a claim for a second time which waives premiums for another 5 years.
However, this second claim cannot be for the same medical condition as the first and should fall in a different category from the first Early Stage Medical Condition claim.
In the event of a diagnosis of Intermediate Stage Medical Conditions, this benefit will waive premiums for 10 years. However, if a successful claim was previously made under Early Stage Medical conditions, only 5 years of future premiums will be waived.
Crisis Waiver III waives any premiums when the life assured is diagnosed with any of the 35 Critical Illnesses listed. After the waiver period, premium payment for covered benefits resumes, but premiums for this rider will not.
Surrender Value
If the premium payment term you chose is shorter than your policy term, there will be a surrender value 36 months from the first premium due date, provided premiums for 36 months have been paid.
Automatic Premium Loan
Once your policy accumulates enough surrender value, failure to pay a premium on time will trigger an automatic premium loan which pays off the premiums on your policy. Annual non-guaranteed loan interest will be charged on the loan start date.
This interest rate might vary and accrue daily.
On the policy anniversary date, the previous year’s interest will be added to the loan amount and interest charged on the total, until the loan is repaid. Prudential can change the interest rate but will give a written notice 3 months before doing so.
The loan amount and interest can be paid back at any time. If the total amount owed under the policy exceeds the surrender value, the policy ends immediately. Do also note that taking this loan reduces the policy’s long-term value.
References
https://www.prudential.com.sg/products/protection/life/pruactive-term