RetireJapan

I (43/m) want to get some cancer insurance (am at slightly higher risk for a particular type of cancer) and have been comparing different companies on kakaku.com.

One thing I am not sure about is the difference between "がん終身" versus one with a fixed term (seems to be five or ten years).

If I opt for a "終身" one (more expensive than a fixed term), does that mean I am locked in forever? I can never cancel it or amend it in the future?
If so, I am leaning towards a fixed term plan....just in case I want to change coverage in the future.

Right now, SBI seems to have a decent plan, and I already use them for my tsumitate-NISA:

https://ibb.co/7vddDxb

One off payment of 3 million yen if I get diagnosed with cancer. Unlimited hospitalization costs.
All for 3235yen per month.

If anyone can help with the above question, or offer any other words of advice, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Roger Van Zant wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:25 am....
... if I get diagnosed with cancer. ...

One thing you might check on is what stage of cancer is required for the one-off payment. My guess is that it would likely be stage II or higher, with anything below that ineligible for payout.

Something to check on and consider when making the purchase.

Also, "all hospitalization costs" is likely over and above what regular health insurance covers. For a long term stay, a private room is nice, but this is elective (not covered by 国民健康保険), so that cost is out of your pocket. Does this policy cover a private room?

For the most part, I do not recommend people get separate cancer insurance etc - avoid the special 三大疾病 insurance - unless you are reasonably sure that you or the person being insured is in a high-risk group. Cancer insurance is quite expensive and the odds of using it while young are rather remote; you're almost certainly better off putting that money in to some low-cost investment.

Japan has a reasonable healthcare system that doesn't bankrupt people for getting sick. There's a cap on how much you would have to pay out of pocket. If you make up to just under Y8 million a year, the max you would pay for medical costs in one month is...Y80,000. And that goes down to Y44,000 a month if you hit the max more than three times in any 12-month period. That's the max in any month - most months your out-of-pocket will be lower. My wife had cancer, and the out-of-pocket expense for the the entire ordeal - surgery, hospital stay, chemo etc - over two years was - about Y500,000. TOTAL.

If you were 40 years old taking out that insurance you'd probably pay at least Y800,000 in insurance in 10 years.

Save and self-insure.

I think the figures are that something like 50% of all people at one time or another will get a cancer diagnosis, even though in the majority(?) of cases it is recoverable. (My wife was actually given a cancer diagnosis in one hospital; went for a series of consultations in another hospital; eventually was declared "It isn't cancer".)

But it is exactly as I said the other day: it does not make sense to insure against something which you expect to happen. If you pay 40,000 yen a year, over say 30 years that is 1.2my; if they are going to give you 3my, you can be quite sure this is not just for "a diagnosis of cancer" (unless, of course, they are simply innumerate; in that case it might look as though you would win, but you won't, because they will go bankrupt). Also, if you are at slightly higher risk, you must tell them, because if you don't, when it comes to payout, they will quiz you very closely.

The 終身 (lifetime) version is more costly, because you can stay in it until you die, whereas if you tried to join much later in life the premiums would naturally be much higher. Of course you can leave: if you leave after 10 years, they have made extra profit, so they are quite happy.

A personal anecdote about insurance: we lived in the north of England, and our house insurance policy said something about the house being a domestic residence only, or some such rubric. But I used to do spare time work (translation) at home. So I wrote to them, pointing this out, because I wanted a confirmation from them that they understood that as well as living in the house, I also worked there. They wrote back a truly bizarre letter - can't remember the exact words, but something like: "As long as the translation business is not for profit, there is no problem." So I wrote back, of course, and got another fairly stupid letter, but it said something like "Did I keep stock in the house?" So I pointed out I had no "stock" as such. I do not trust stupid people, on principle.