Response to query on Advance Medical Directive

MOH's Reply

Straits Times, 19 Feb 2015

Response to query on Advance Medical Directive

We refer to Mr Loon Chee How’s letter (“Does Advance Medical Directive impact insurance?”, Straits Times, 14 February 2015), on the impact of the Advance Medical Directive (AMD) on insurance policies. 

The AMD is a legal document that one signs in advance to inform the doctor treating him, in the event he becomes terminally ill and unconscious, that he does not want any extraordinary life-sustaining treatment to be used to prolong his life. Making an AMD is a voluntary decision.

The AMD Act states that the making of an AMD shall not affect the sale, procurement or issuance of an insurance policy. More details on the AMD are available at the MOH website.

https://www.moh.gov.sg/amd .

In addition, the AMD Act does not authorise any act that causes or accelerates death from the natural course.

Ms Lim Bee Khim
Director, Corporate Communications
Ministry of Health

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Straits Times, 14 Feb 15

Does Advance Medical Directive impact insurance?

BEFORE making an Advance Medical Directive (AMD), I wanted to find out if it would affect my life insurance policies.

But I just could not find the answers. The insurance companies did not seem to have knowledge of the AMD Act.

The only response I received from one of them was the standard one: That the company would assess every insurance claim on its merit and on reports from the doctors. This is a very generalised and evasive reply.

Does the Act make it mandatory for all insurance companies to regard all life insurance claims as a result of an AMD death as valid?

In other words, will the insurance companies accept that an AMD death is not "unnatural" or "premature"?

What insurance policies are not affected by the AMD?

In the event that insurers do not honour life policies under an AMD death, what recourse does one have?

Loon Chee How