You’ve got to have it when you don’t need it, so it’s there when you do.
A company plan is built to a budget, and that budget was not set with your family in mind. A serious illness in a private hospital here can run past the limit faster than most people expect.
The other half of it is that the cover belongs to the job rather than to you. It ends when the job does, and if something is diagnosed along the way it may be excluded or loaded when you come to buy your own. You are insurable today, and that is the part people miss.
An expat in a top corporate role came to us about a number he had gone and checked. His company plan paid up to S$100,000 for a stay in hospital. For a serious illness in a private hospital here that does not go far, and it was the only cover his family had.
We built a top-up to sit above it. Two decisions kept it affordable: it pays only for treatment in hospital, and it only starts once a bill passes S$10,000. Without those two it would have cost about 70% more. He never has to find that first S$10,000 himself, because his company plan pays that part. Between them, his family went from S$100,000 of cover to S$3.8 million.
A few years in, his wife was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. The first year of treatment came to over S$200,000.
No new insurer would take her on now. This plan renews anyway, and it goes on renewing even if they move to another country.
The company plan alone would have run out inside the first year. The rest was bought while she was still insurable, which is the part nobody can buy back later.
Where the company plan stopped
S$100,000
Over S$100,000
First year of treatment
Over S$200,000
The company plan’s cap
S$100,000
Past the cap, met by the top-up
Over S$100,000
One real case, anonymised and permission-cleared. A cap of S$100,000 is that employer’s, and the terms of the top-up are that policy’s — including its renewal. Both will differ from yours. It is here to show that a ceiling is a real number with a real edge, not to predict where yours sits.
What a top-up costs
Three insurers, priced for the same person on the same narrow cover. The premium is modest because the deductible is high, and the deductible is affordable because the company plan pays that layer first.
Insurer A, USD 8,100
Insurer B, USD 8,500
Insurer P, SGD 10,000
Annual limit
USD 2,250,000
USD 2,890,000
USD 1,562,500
Age 30
USD 1,874.80
USD 1,661.52
USD 1,398.27
Age 40
USD 2,234.50
USD 2,409.52
USD 1,789.98
Age 50
USD 3,059.63
USD 4,273.90
USD 2,662.84
In-patient cover only, for a single adult resident in Singapore, worldwide excluding the United States, on the deductible shown in each column. Real rates from our current rate table, priced August 2026. Indicative and subject to underwriting.
Two things to consider
The ceiling
The number your plan stops at. Most people have never checked it.
Portability
What happens when the job ends, and whether your medical history goes with you.
What we do
Read your scheme’s actual limits with you, rather than working from what the benefits summary implies.
Size a plan that sits above it instead of alongside it, so you are not paying twice for the first layer.
We look at what you have, tell you where it stands, and say so if it is already enough. You will hear back within two business days, and nothing here commits you to anything.
A licensed Singapore agency
The Insurance Concierge Agency Pte. Ltd., advising on policies issued in Singapore since 2014.
