FISCA Talk - Consumer Guide to Insurance

I have received several requests from readers to conduct a talk on insurance. In response to this request, I have prepared the outline of the talk here. The fee for the talk will be $20 (for FISCA members) and $30 (for public).

I wish to carry out a survey to find out how many people are interested in this talk. Please reply to this survey. If there is sufficient interest, I will ask FISCA to organise this talk.

Excessive charges

Are you angry at the excessive charges levied by corporations for incidental services? Do you feel; that they holding the consumers to ransom? Read this article.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=241

Take part in this survey.

Here are some consumer views on the excessive charges made by corporations.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=244

Survey: Restructure the global economy

Read this article
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=233

Give your views in this survey

Medishield and Private Shield

Take part in this survey

This article explains why it is better to be insured under Medishield, compared to Private Shield, especially for the elderly and retired people. The consumer pays a lower premium and a lower co-payment under Medishield (by going to subsidized wards) and get a similar quality of medical care.

www.tankinlian.com/latest.aspx

Additional comment
I like to ask consumers to read my book, Practical Guide on Financial Planning, to be educated about insurance and investment. Please send questions to me after you have bought and read my book.

Ranking of Nanyang Technological University

Survey: If you have any views about the reason for the drop in ranking, please reply in this survey.


Dear Mr. Tan
Would you like to conduct a survey on NTU’s dramatic drop in university ranking? The following questions may be asked.
1) Who caused the dramatic drop in ranking
a) The management
b) The academic staff
c) The non-academic staff
d) The students


2) What can be done about it?

REPLY
According to the newspaper report, the drop in ranking is due to the change in criteria. Perhaps, there are some internal factors in the university that may account for the ranking. Let me invite views from readers of my blog.

Survey: contingency fees

Read this paper on Contingency Fee for Professionals.

Should Singapore adopt a system of contingency fees for laywers and doctors? Give your views in this short survey.

Survey: Sit Back and Watch (SBW) Award

I wish to give the SBW Award to the organisation or person in Singapore who sits back and watch, when it is their duty to step forward and uphold justice. Who do you nominate? Survey.

Survey: Favourite Singaporean expressions

Many Singaporeans use the following expression often, "be careful". It reflect a character trait - caution. This character trait make many Singaporeans scared to decide. They prefer to let other people decide for them. Do you agree?

Take part in this survey.

Features of life insurance policies

Hi Mr Tan,
Can you tell me what are the features for these insurance policies?
1) Limited pyament whole life insurance
2) Regular prenium investment-linked policies
3) Anticipated Endowment Insurance

REPLY
I will only give a brief explanation here. Please search Google for a more detailed explanation.

A limited payment whole life policy requires you to pay premium for a certain number of years and be insured for the whole of life. If you pay premium for a shorter period, the annual premium is higher.

A regular premium investment linked policy requires you to pay a regular premium over many years. The premium is invested in an investment fund. You will get the value of the invested units.

An anticipated endowment policy pays the maturity benefit in installments during the term. For example, if you insure for 50,000 over 20 years under an anticipated endowment policy, the $50,000 is paid to you in installments over the 20 years. The annual premium for an anticipated endowment policy is much higher than an ordinary endowment policy.

A life insurance policy may take away as much as two years of your premium to pay commission to the agent. This is too much to be taken away. If you pay a premium of $300 a month, two years of premium amount to $7,200. This is the money taken away from you to pay the agent.

I advise people not to buy all of these types of insurance policies, including critical illness policy, which pays high commission. It is all right to buy term insurance policy (where the premium is low) or a single premium policy, where the commisison is less than 3%.

All the best.

GST records adds to cost of doing business

The owner of a small business told me that the keeping of tax invoices to support GST has added to his cost of doing business. He has to keep separate records for the purpose of GST, which is additional to the records for preparing his accounting statements.

Do you agree with this view? If you are runnning a business that needs to comply with GST or have any friends in this situation, please share your views here.

Survey: Singapore political system

Give your views here.

Here are the survey results (based on 54 replies)

Survey: Singaporean values

Share your views here.

Here are the survey results (51 replies).

Puzzle: Send More Money

A young man who is backpacking overseas sends his father the following telegram from Timbuktu:

  SEND
+ MORE
------
 MONEY

The father looked at the telegram and, with a bit of logic, he figured out the exact amount of money that his son needed! How much money did the son request? Each letter in MONEY represents a different digit.

Give your answer here. The correct answer will be displayed after you submitted your entry.

Here is the explanation on how to solve this puzzle.

Survey: It is easy to be cheated

Do you like my articles on "It is easy to be cheated"? Please reply to this survey. You can click here to view the various articles.

Here are the survey results (based on 41 replies). There are many personal observations.

Political changes in Singapore

What are your views about the proposed political changes announced by Prime Minister Lee? Give your views here.

Here are the survey results (48 replies).

Survey - social benefits and taxation

Do you prefer the state (i.e. Government) to provide less social benefits and reduce taxes, or to provide more social benefits (to be funded by higher taxes). Give your views in this survey.

Here are the survey results.

Survey: Competition and Fair Trading

When we buy a car, we have a competitive market giving a large choice of car models. After buying the car, we have to approach the manufacturer for certain special parts, e.g. a replacement electronic key. The manufacturer does not allow other people to provide the key.

What is a fair price to pay for the car? Is it $30, $300 or $3,000? A non-electronic key can be made at a cost of $10. An electronic key is more expensive, but is $300 or $3,000 fair? If some manufacturer can make an electronic key for $150, should another menufacturer charge $300 or $1,000? 

Is there any party responsible to address complaints of consumers? 

Give your views in this survey.

Here are the survey results.

Survey: Financial advise

Financial advisers are required to make a financial needs analysis of their client and to have a suitable basis for giving their advice on implementing a financial plan?

How is this advise given? 

Many clients have approached me for advice, because they are confused with what the adviser told them. This is most unsatisfactory. The financial adviser earned $1,000 or more in commission and did not give a satisfactory explanation.  

I suggest that the advise should be given in simple language in a format that is understandable by the client.

I also suggest that a set of the documents supporting the advise should be given to the client. The client can give the advise to another person for a second opinion. This will ensure that the quality of the advice given by the first adviser is satisfactory and conforms with some best good practice standard.

At present, the financial adviser is required to lodge their advice to the advisory firm and a supervisor is required to audit the advice. As the supervisor works for the same firm, this does not give sufficient protection to the consumer on the quality of advice and the suitability of the products.

What are your views on this matter? Particpate in this survey.

Survey: Job satisfaction of Singaporeans

A Business Times report quoted a survey showing that Singaporeans have low job satisfaction - the second worst in the world (Japan is the worst). What are the key factors? Give your views in this survey.

Here are the survey results.

Survey: Getting our young into Politics

Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said that young people are not interested to go into politics. He quoted the example of his grandson, who is now on a scholarship.

I like to carry out this survey to get the views of a wider group of people. Please participate.

Here are the survey results.