Sum assured to cover treatment and replace income during recovery.
Sum assured needed
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Income during recovery
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Less existing cover
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Your breakdown
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What a critical illness payout is really for
A critical illness policy pays a single lump sum when you are diagnosed with one of the conditions it lists, cancer, heart attack, stroke and a long schedule of others. Unlike a medical plan, it does not reimburse hospital bills against receipts; it simply hands you cash to use however the illness demands. That cash has two jobs. It plugs the hole that medical insurance leaves, the deductibles, the drugs and therapies not on the formulary, the private room, the second opinion abroad, and it replaces the income you lose while you are too unwell to work. This calculator sizes the sum assured by adding those two needs and then crediting any cover you already hold.
It is a planning estimate, not an underwriting quote. The premium you are actually charged depends on your age, health and the policy term, none of which this tool touches. Its value is in getting you to a defensible target figure before you talk to an insurer, so you are negotiating from a number rather than a guess.
Sizing the cover: a worked case
Using the defaults, a $600,000 annual income, three recovery years, an $800,000 treatment estimate and $500,000 of existing cover. Three years of income is $1.8 million, the buffer that lets you step back from work without the household finances collapsing. Add the $800,000 you expect to spend on treatment beyond what your medical plan covers, and the gross need is $2.6 million. Subtract the $500,000 you already hold and the gap this calculator suggests you insure is $2.1 million.
The recovery-years number is the one to argue about
Treatment cost is a guess you can refine with quotes, but the recovery-years figure quietly drives the biggest part of the answer, because it multiplies your whole income. Three years suits a serious but survivable diagnosis with a return to work. Someone in a physically demanding job, the sole earner for a young family, or facing a condition with a long rehabilitation might choose four or five, and the sum assured climbs fast. A dual-income household where a partner can carry the bills might sensibly choose less. Move that single input and watch how sensitive the total is before you commit to a premium. One genuine advantage in Hong Kong is that the lump sum the insurer pays you is not itself subject to income tax, and there is no capital gains tax on it, so the figure you insure is the figure you can spend.
Common questions
If I already have medical insurance, do I still need critical illness cover?
They solve different problems. Medical insurance, including a VHIS plan, reimburses treatment costs but pays nothing toward the salary you stop earning while you recover, and it usually carries limits, deductibles and exclusions that leave real gaps. Critical illness cover hands you cash with no strings, which is what keeps the mortgage paid and the family fed during months out of work. Most people who can afford both hold both, and this calculator's treatment line is meant to capture only the spending your medical plan will not.
Does the payout reduce if I claim only part of it?
That depends on the policy design, not on this tool. Many critical illness plans pay the full sum assured on a major-condition claim and then end, while multi-claim or multi-pay policies pay a percentage for an early-stage condition and keep cover running for later, separate claims. If continued cover after a first diagnosis matters to you, look specifically for a multi-claim structure, and size each potential claim against the need this calculator produces rather than assuming one payout covers everything.