TheFinance.sg » Insurance

Are your existing insurance plan suitable?

Patrick See — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:47:39 +0000

I had lots of emails and queries regarding suitability. We have talks/seminar on investment suitability, Client Knowledge Assessment, Product Suitability, etc but what is insurance suitability?….

First of all, I am impressed/surprised that most Audience picked up this insurance jargon ‘suitability’. Congrats!

Hence, the common question is what did I mean by the above title?

Take for e.g. Mr. Chan who wants to start off an insurance plan for his daughter Age, 19.

His preference is to cover the child for Sum Assured of S$ 300,000 for

premature death
total & permanent disability (TPD)
terminal illness (TI)
critical illness (CI) or major illness coupled with early stage dread disease benefit
AND cash values of S$ 100,000 at age 64/65 thereabouts.

The operative on (5) is ‘AND’ and this is where the word suitability is in question.

What is the probability for claims one to four?

Death – once
TPD once
TI once
Major illness – more than once
Early stage detection – in addition to more than once, early is earlier!

You be the judge! Is the plan well designed to fulfil the needs of Mr. Tan.? Is the plan suitable for his daughter?

How could the above be avoided?…

In search of higher income and better standard of living. What’s missing?

Patrick See — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:10:57 +0000

In my 16 years of practical experience being in the financial industry, I’ve assisted a handful in claims – death and diagnosis of major illness. Fortunately, all claims were processed and approved. Their loved ones and dependants are ‘well’ taken care off.

I am writing to you as I am very concern for most of you – in the area of personal financial risk management.

We complete our education, find a job/career, start a family, buy a house, and pay off our debts while planning for retirement. However, in this search of climbing the corporate ladder, earning a better income while starting a family, many (NOT all) are in search of higher income.

In my opinion, the primary objectives of most family are a higher income and a better standard of living. What I am concerned about is that the improvement in income and a better standard of living does not equate to a proportionate level of savings, investments, retirement funding, protection of future income for future expenses for self, loved ones and dependants.

Why is that so? The common reasons are:

No money, no worry, no hurry. Hence, the issue is that when they reach pre-retirement, the time factor, health factor, insurability factor may be too little too late….

AIA Platinum Legacy Series

Ivan Guan — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:22:41 +0000

In keynote address at Life Insurance Association 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner, Ravi Menon, Managing Director of MAS said:

Saving for the future, investing for returns, and protecting against risk – these are the fundamentals of managing our finances. Yet so few of us do it well. We are far better at earning an income than investing it and protecting against risk.

As an affluent individual, you already have the knowledge and abilities to make good income and may have accumulated substantial wealth. However, your challenge always lies in protecting this wealth for the next generation and ensuring the growth.

This becomes especially more difficult today when interest rate is extremely low and stock market is uncertain.

If you are comfortable with US dollar exposure, the AIA Platinum Legacy series plans may come in handy.

AIA Platinum Legacy is a universal life insurance and the premium is typically paid …

6 Hours workshop on estate planning (9 & 10 May 2012)

Wilfred Ling — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:59:43 +0000

Written by Wilfred Ling Monday, 14 May 2012

On 9 & 10 May 2012, I conducted marathon workshops on estate planning. This is my first time doing so as I was unsure how the response would be. Each workshop lasted 6 hours. Altogether, there were 16 individuals who attended this talk. I consider it to be a well-received workshop. Below were some of the comments made on the feedback forms:

If You Still Don’t Believe ILP is a Time Bomb? This time from the Horse’s mouth!

Createwealth8888 — Sun, 13 May 2012 15:09:00 +0000

Read? If You Still Don’t Believe ILP is a Time Bomb? One more experience shared

invest, thesundyatime May 13, 2012. Pg 40

Risks of ILPs

Mr Bradnon Lam, senior vice-president and head of consumer investment and insurance products at DBS Bank, explained that as ILPs feed into funds, depending on the structure, some may not provide guaranteed cash values. Oftentimes, the final cash value will depend on the value of the fund that ILPs feed into.

Mr Lam also cautioned that investors have to bear the entire investment risk of the funds they buy into, unlike traditional insurance such as whole life and endowment, in which the insurer bears the investment risk for guaranteed benefits portion.

The value of non-guaranteed benefits will depend on the performance of the insurer’s participating fund.

Insurance coverage rises with age. As regular premiums ILPs usually pay the insurance coverage charges by selling fund units, …

launch of zurich life insurance singapore

Patrick Lim — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:23:05 +0000

today, david choo, the md of promiseland independent pte ltd and myself attended the grand launch of zurich life insurance singapore at the marina mandarin hotel.

we have heard that zurich international life has applied for a full licence many months ago and today, the subsidiary of zurich insurance group, which is zurich life insurance singapore has been granted a full licence by the monetary authority of singapore to sell products to a wider market where previously, the company could only target a defined market with a restricted licence.

zurich international life has been operating locally since 2006 and has been limited to the mass affluent and affluent market which represents some 5% of the total market.

mr graham morrall, chief executive of zurich life insurance singapore said that with the full licence, the company is reaffirming its full commitment to the singapore market and will enable it to tap …

1st step to build your Financial Portfolio – Getting yourself covered with a Medical Insurance

Dave — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:17:38 +0000

In Singapore, the cost of living has been increasing year after year. The same goes to medical costs.

Cost of admission for common diseases:

“This is a guest post from Verlin Tan,
Financial Planner representing HSBC Insurance Singapore,
specializing in Wealth Management.”

Thus, how is one being safeguarded from the hefty costs of hospitalisation?

Imagine Billy, age 30, a Singaporean, was hospitalized due to lung cancer. Where will money comes from to pay the bill without a medical insurance?

Billy’s choices:

1st level of protection: All Singaporeans can access to a subsidy of up to 80% of the total bill in acute public hospital wards. This applies to Billy if he chooses to be treated in a public hospital. His bill will be highly subsidized. However, he still needs to pay the remaining portion of the bill. Refer to 2^nd level protection to find out …

HSBC Early Critical Care

eemin.the.ifa — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:27:43 +0000

HSBC Early Critical Care was launched in early March 2012.

It is a pure term insurance protection focussed on early stage critical illness claims.

Plan highlights
- 100% term protection (standalone plan)

- Covers 90 medical conditions across wide scope and severity of critical illnesses.

- 100% payout of Sum Assured at all stages, subject to caps: $75,000 at Early and $150,000 at Intermediate Stages.

- Special CI benefit for Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever, Diabetic Retinopathy, Osteoporosis, Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis. Each payout 20% of sum assured, cap $25,000 for each claim.

- Angioplasty (heart stent/balloon) payout is 10% of sum assured, cap $25,000.

- Coverage term: to age 65 or 85.

- Max sum assured: SGD 1,000,000.00 (min SA: SGD 50,000)

- Premium Waiver till end of policy in event of early/intermediate CI claim.

Special CI payout is in addition to the plan’s sum assured. So in theory, it may …

Are Advisers Who Sold Whole Life Plans Profit Driven?

Tiang Chuan — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 02:17:24 +0000

As expected, in the aftermath of the news of MAS’s Financial Advisory Industry Review (FAIR), the media followed-up with more reports , particularly on the commission part. The 28th March 2012 issue of The Straits Times came with an article (Beware profit-driven insurance agents) on the sensitive issue.

Disclaimer: I have sold whole life plans and am still selling them.

A junior insurance agent was quoted “Term policies don’t make the company money, so we have to sell other policies like investment-linked plans or whole life policies. I only talk about term policy if the client asks me specifically about it“. Is this phenomenon common? From my own experience, yes! Not only junior advisers do that, even senior ones do that! Sure, some are driven to do it due to the commissions. However, there could be ones who do it due to pressure and sales quotas.

The …

Singapore Financial Services Sector To Face Dramatic Changes

Muslims In Singapore Can Now Use Revocable Nomination For Their Insurance Policies….

Helmi Hakim — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:36:29 +0000

Alhamdulillah…. MUIS has issued a FATWA allowing Muslims to use revocable nomination for their insurance policies.

(Myself and my client interviewed by BERITASuria, Malay news channel, few days ago. Click the link to view video)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

This new fatwa, is a fatwa that has been much welcome by the Muslim community who owns insurance policies in Singapore .

The fatwa will affect all Muslims who have an insurance policy with insurance companies in Singapore with effect from Sept 2009. This is because since Sept 2009, Muslims can only use irrevocable nomination for their insurance policies and there are many limitations to it.

This fatwa does not affect policy taken before Sept 2009.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Before : Can only make Irrevocable nomination.

When a policyholder does an irrevocable nomination, he will automatically gives up right of the policy to nominees. He cannot take a loan on the policy without the approval of …

Insurance – Enhanced Endowment Policy Suck! (3)

Createwealth8888 — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:26:00 +0000

Read? Insurance – Enhanced Endowment Policy Suck! (2)

This year, I didn’t receive any ”tulan” announcement of further bonus cut. It seems that bad market condition is temporary over.

After paying premiums for the last 15 years, the Net Surrender Value is 95.4% of the total premium paid.

It didn’t even manage to break even after 15 years. Insurance is really about protection and don’t ever let your friendly insurance agents convince you that insurance is a good platform for forced saving and investment. You can’t trust the insurance companies to take care of your investment portfolio. If you want better returns, you may have no choice but to get your hands dirty and learn to be financial and investment savvy.

About Annuity Benefits, Rate of Return

Drizzt — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:32:58 +0000

Annuities is a financial instrument normally sold by insurance agents with the view of taking a lump sum from you in exchange of returning a fixed sum of money every month.

In Singapore, the most common annuity that we come across is our CPF Life. It is very unpopular and people seem to think it is a way the government refuse to let us take back our money.

But for me it does have its use, just that people find it hard to justify whether they are getting a good payout our return out of it.

The rate of return of annuities

To calculate the rate of return we can use an IRR excel formula to help us. I have come up with a easy rate of return calculator here for you guys to play around. Make a copy of it if you have a Google account. [Calculator here …

Go for your medical checkups!

Jared Seah — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:10:32 +0000

Recently for the past 4 weeks, I’ve been visiting the Alexandra and National University hospitals twice and even thrice a week!

No, I am well and fine, thank you very much. I am now caregiver to the person most dearest to me.

I would like to share my reflections on the most important asset we have – our health.

We sometimes spend a lot of energy and money securing all the medical insurance “protection” to assuage the fear of our own mortality or our concerns on the rising medical costs…

Two Extremes

Most of us may have over bought our medical insurance needs under the influence of too much fear (not helped by fear-mongering peddled by agents); or under protected ourselves through a combination of self-denial or over confidence that it could never happen to me!

How much research we have done on our personal and family’s medical history before buying all those medical “riders” and supplementary policies?

If we had done our homework, we may realise the odds of us getting some medical conditions are so rare that the odds are like us striking the Big Sweep Lottery!

Of course we can cover our bases and protect ourselves to the hilt; but if we do so, we can’t laugh at those who buy lottery tickets - the odds are the same.

How to know whether you are more susceptible to certain medical conditions?

Go for your medical checkups! Get to know your body. Duh!

This is not enough. We need to know our family’s and immediate relatives’ medical records too. Especially if the medical conditions are hereditary.

You get the picture.

I just find it strange that we sometimes buy insurance for all medical eventualities, yet do no hedging for our financial investments. And vice versa – hedge our investments, but throw caution to the wind for our own medical needs.

Insurance Is Not The Medical Cure

Imagine the willingness to invest in medical insurance, but at the same time refuse to go for our annual medical check-ups?

Let’s put aside the discussion that early detection may be less costly to treat. You probably don’t care since you got insurance?

Hello! What’s the point of “rejoicing” you don’t have to pay a single cent for expensive treatments when the discovery of our illness is at the terminal stage?

The point of early detection is so we have a better chance of recovery!!!

Don’t over commit to medical policies that you have to skim on medical check-ups. Even if we have no medical insurance, early detection may help us afford the medical treatments.

It’s my own reflection

I am merely sharing my own thoughts on the recent events in my life. Your life and situation will be different from mine.

But I have one other thought. How on earth did our senior citizens handle their old age during the 60s and 70s? What medisave? What medishield? What medical insurance? Do they just roll-over and die when they have an illness?

Or do we worry too much?

Singapore Man of Leisure (welcome to my blog; just google it!)

HSBC launches new product – Early Critical Care

Ivan Guan — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 03:41:48 +0000

Early critical illness insurance competition has just geared up. After AIA Complete Critical Cover, NTUC VivoCare and AXA’s Early-Payout LivingEnhancer, HSBC is the latest entrant for early critical illness coverage.

Key features of Early Critical Care are

Coverage of 28 Early, 27 Intermediate and 30 Critical Stage Medical Conditions – making early treatments possible
Additional coverage on 4 Special Critical Illnesses – not commonly offered in the market such as dengue haemorrhagic fever
Total of 90 covered illness (including Angioplasty and Other Invasive Treatment for Coronary Artery) – the most* in the market (* Comparing with 4 key insurers that offered products with similar features as at Nov 2011)
Peace of mind with lump sum payouts equivalent to 100% at all stages (subject to the respective limits) – the highest* in the market
14 days survival period – one of the lowest requirement in the market
Future premiums will …

Which type of insurance is best for me

Dave — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 04:03:19 +0000

Throughout the years in my career, many people had asked me this question -” Which type of insurance is best for me?” The answer is very simple. Different insurance meets different needs. It depends of your lifestyle, background, dreams and personality to find something that suits you.

Insurance policies are very complicated to look at them in details but the good thing is we do not need rocket science to understand it. Basically, everyone should have the 4 types of insurance in their financial portfolio.

“This is a guest post from Verlin Tan,
Financial Planner representing HSBC Insurance Singapore,
specializing in Wealth Management.”

It is best to have all 4 at one go. However, can we afford all at once? For a good start, you can look at a good medical insurance. (I will go into details in my next post.). On top of that, have a …

Insurance agent did not have insurance for own child?

hsbc insurance – launch of early critical care

Patrick Lim — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:02:00 +0000

hsbc insurance has just launched what i term as a second generation critical illness product, early critical care which is one of the most comprehensive protection plans currently available.

benefits at a glance:

Covers 90 conditions
Enjoy comprehensive coverage against a wide range of illnesses.

Provides 100% payout even for early stage critical illness
Early Critical Care pays 100% of the sum assured in the early, intermediate and critical stages#

Covering illnesses not commonly insured in Singapore
Covering prevalent illnesses such as Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever, Diabetic Retinopathy, Osteoporosis and Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis

my comments:

it has to happen, sooner or later with another joining the bandwagon to roll out what i term as a second generation critical illness product.

because hsbc insurance is the latest entrant to the market, it offers the most comprehensive coverage of critical illness from early to intermediate to severe critical illness conditions with 90 on …

ntuc-income: launch of capital plus (CPN29)

Patrick Lim — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 08:11:00 +0000

just received this email notification from ntuc-income:

Dear Valued Business Partners,

We are pleased to announce the launch of our limited-tranche non-participating 2-years single premium non-participating plan, Capital Plus (CPN29).

*_Brief outline of the plan:_*

Ø2-years single premium non-participating plan

ØGuaranteed interest of 1.40%p.a.

ØProvides TPD before age 65 years old (last birthday) and Death coverage

ØEntry age of 16 to 80 years old (last birthday)

ØMinimum single premium of $10,000 up to a maximum of S$1,000,000

ØSimplified underwriting

·Sum Assured = 105% of Single Premium

·Sum Assured = 100% of Single Premium (if claim occurs within the 1^st policy year)

Please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions for more details.

As this is a limited tranche product, applications to the plan is on a *_first-come-first-served basis_*. The product will be withdrawn upon attainment of tranche size. Any excess premium received above the tranche size will be refunded …

NTUC Value Pack

Martin Lee — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 04:27:08 +0000

NTUC Income has launched a Value Pack comprising a low-cost term insurance and Enhanced Incomeshield Plan C specially for the low income group and the uninsured.

The Enhanced Incomeshield Plan C provides as charged (excluding deductibles and co-insurance) coverage at Singapore Restructured Hospitals for ward class B2 & below and is a step-downed version of the lowest plan available now (enhanced basic) which provides coverage for up to B1 wards.

The term insurance (i-Term) is capped at a maximum sum assured of $50,000 per person and has premium rates which are lower than the normal i-Term product.

To qualify to buy …