We are definitely not going anywhere to travel for a prolonged period at this point in time. I would not advise anyone to as well so we probably have to Rediscover Singapore as what our Deputy PM and Finance Minister said. To a certain extent, I kind of like that idea. Singapore is small but there are stuff you can really explore. To put things to perspective, If you have an overseas friend who asks you what can they do when they come over to Singapore. (Zoo? Safari? Flyer?) I think we have more interesting stuff to do other than those.
Sentosa
Speaking of which, Sentosa has been trying to complete a face lift since like aeons ago and they are introducing free entry to the island.
Free NDP Tokens
You can register for the free tokens at https://ndp2020.sentosa.com.sg/ as long as you are a local or resident in Singapore. Every registered household can only redeem two Sentosa Fun Passes. (loaded with 10 tokens) That is not too bad for a family day out.
Once you have successfully registered for the free tokens, a registration confirmation email will be sent to your registered email address. Redemption can be done at Sentosa Ticketing Counters which you have to indicate when you register online.
Things to bring
It is a little troublesome but you need to select a date when you would like to go Sentosa but at the same time, you can edit/cancel the date. You also need to redeem from a member of the household – with proof of residency. So, do bring along the original form of identification and confirmation email for verification.
Term Insurance or Participating Whole Life Insurance? This is the question that I often ask and discuss with my other half. Typically, people seek value when they buy or invest in something. For insurance, value seekers would prefer a cash value. Cash value is what you have contributed over the insurance tenor. These sum of money, deducting the cost of insurance, the fees, commissions, salary and what nots will be invested by the insurance company Fund Managers (Whether they choose in-house or external fund houses) – In short they are known as participating life insurance.
Term and Whole Life Insurance
Term Insurance are policies that do not have a cash value. They are typically cheaper than Whole Life Plans (Otherwise it wouldn’t make sense to get term insurance). For example, they cost $200 per annum for a coverage of $200K and it depends on your age at point of inception. They may or may not be renewable yearly, meaning that the premiums will increase with age and each individual health condition.
In my personal opinion, I think that a Whole Life Plan is really expensive. You pay premiums and the first three years, there is literally no value to your assets. Then your participating underlying investments are handled by someone else who tries their best to beat benchmark and regardless, they get paid in fees and costs.
Buy Term, Invest the Rest?
There is a famous saying, buy term and invest the rest. Well, I don’t have a view on that. It really depends if you want to leave some legacy behind for your family/kids/relatives or it may even be transitory. For e.g. used to cover debts such as a new house, a new car or assets. In order not to complicate matters, I’ll leave illness out of the equation and discuss solely on the death benefit. Generally, you need to cover your liabilities so that in the event of death, your family members not only are rid of their stress and pressure from the loss of a loved one as well as the financial aspect of it. To a certain extent, I believe in covering at least 2x of your liabilities so that there is comfort in dealing with more financial freedom.
The other stuffs to take note of
For a typical household, i believe that health insurance is the first thing you need to seek coverage on, followed by life plans but everyone’s scenario is different. In finance, there is a phase that all of us has to go through which is also the toughest and it is called wealth building. I’ll leave it for discussion on a separate day but my point is, you buy insurance based on what you can afford and not because it is cheap or time is not on your side.
For me, I take the approach of covering term as well as whole life plans. The hybrid style works for me as I am pretty savvy with financial contracts and insurance. In my own time, I am qualified advisor for insurance and more qualified than many out there but I never once worked for any insurance company. Though finance is my forte but there are too many products and innovation in this field that you cant keep up. So, you need to have someone in there to guide you along. It is annoying to talk to agents so you need to have someone you trust.
Let me just plant some ideas – If it make sense. It isn’t all encompassing but just to point things out.
Term Life:
A. A Substitute for liabilities (Housing loan, car loan, personal loan, student loan)
B. A transition phase which you do not mind protecting until that period is over. As term has no value, it is similar to a no-contract telco plan and you can get rid of it anytime (if the time period is short)
C. Supplement for a shortage of coverage that you have for your whole life.
Whole Life Plan:
A. It’s just for lazy people. Buy/Save and pay the premium for a period of time. Leave it there.
B. Buy at a young age and the premiums stay really really low which is smart. Consider your finances too as you need it to be as affordable until you have served the payment term.
C. If you have a young kid or elderly who are not working. You, are the income holder needs to be insured. When you are gone, the young kid and elderly will not be able to work to give you an income.
Above all, health is of the utmost importance. You will never know when or what hits you. Even then, your state of mind will be in a mess. So, no matter how prepared you are, no one will ever be prepared. All these little steps and conversations must eventually turn into real action. When shit comes, it comes and there is no point saying “I should have”. Don’t just listen to your agent out there. Seek alternative, ask and learn. No will will care more about your money more than you will – These life skills will bring value to your own life and frankly I can’t see a life with no planning and no one should.
Disclaimer
These are just solely opinions of mine. Different people have different needs, requirement, financial situation and views. For me, this is what I would do if I need to deal with buying insurance for myself and my family. There is no one size fits all – different strokes for different folks.
So, I received an email from GIGA (a subsidiary of Starhub) on updates on the data plans. I was previously on their pop up plan of S$18 monthly for 20GB of data and 200 minutes of talk time and 200 free SMSes. The best is that I do not need to do anything and 40GB will be shown on my next renewal date for the same price. It is not a temporary but a permanent change. Thumbs up for that GIGA.
With random outages from broadband throughout the country despite telcos being KPI-ed from keeping their lines up. At times, such disruptions can bring inconvenience or affect business deals. With more data, it give more assurance and back-ups should anything go wrong.
The good of GIGA
In my previous post about GIGA, the two main points is really what I like:
1. No contract means, flexibility and freedom to cancel the contract anytime.
2. Signup is digital only – meaning you can only sign up online and use an app to access your account as well as setup your payments. They accept most major credit cards and changing them us just through a click.
I still find their branding and customer approach more appealing than Singtel and M1, hence will still stick with them.
Things to take note of
You would need to pay a small registration fee and arrange for the SIM card to be delivered to your preferred location. However, you can use a referral code to supplement the discount. You will get a discount if you use my referral code – “LhS9Ng”. The referral credit is only valid for any plans except the basic $10 GIGA plans.
These are just solely opinions of mine. Different people have different needs and requirements. You can also use Seedly to compare on the different type of plans.
So, I received an email from GIGA (a subsidiary of Starhub) on updates on the data plans. I was previously on their pop up plan of S$18 monthly for 20GB of data and 200 minutes of talk time and 200 free SMSes. The best is that I do not need to do anything and 40GB will be shown on my next renewal date for the same price. It is not a temporary but a permanent change. Thumbs up for that GIGA.
With random outages from broadband throughout the country despite telcos being KPI-ed from keeping their lines up. At times, such disruptions can bring inconvenience or affect business deals. With more data, it give more assurance and back-ups should anything go wrong.
In my previous post about GIGA, the two main points is really what I like:
1. No contract means, flexibility and freedom to cancel the contract anytime.
2. Signup is digital only – meaning you can only sign up online and use an app to access your account as well as setup your payments. They accept most major credit cards and changing them us just through a click.
I still find their branding and customer approach more appealing than Singtel and M1 and hence will still stick with them.
You would need to pay a small registration fee and arrange for the SIM card to be delivered to your preferred location. However, you can use a referral code to supplement the discount. You will get a discount if you use my referral code – “LhS9Ng”. The referral credit is only valid for any plans except the basic $10 GIGA plans.
Disclaimer: These are just solely opinions of mine. Different people have different needs and requirements. You can also use Seedly to compare on the different type of plans.
Picture images are taken from the respective websites for reference only.
