Saturday, May 10, 2008

Collective Protest - update at 11 May

I received about 60 envelopes with 107 signatures this morning. Thank you for your support.

Most signature lists contain just 1 or 2 signatures. It will be helpful if you can round up your neighbours, work colleagues and friends and fill up the signature page (or several pages) before you mail them to me. This will save on the work of individual persons and reduce the number of envelopes and postages. It will also reduce my work.

Alternatively, you can scan the signature list and e-mail to kinlian@gmail.com

Earn a good yield on Medisave

Dear Mr. Tan,
Someone told me that you recommend paying premium for Shield out of pocket, instead of Medisave. You also said to pay the co-payment using cash, instead of claiming against Medisave. Why?

REPLY
If you have the cash, it sits in the bank earning less than 1% per annum. You can use it to pay the Shield premium and the co-payment (for hospitalisation).

If you do not touch your Medisave savings, it will earn interest at 4% plus 1% bonus, making a total of 5%. This is a good yield.

You will need your Medisave savings to pay for the insurance premium and hospital co-payments when you grow old. If you do not use it, the excess, above the cap, can be transferred into your retirement account to be paid out monthly.

The Medisave account is a good form of investment earning 5% without any risk.

Read this FAQ for more explanation:
http://www.tankinlian.com/faq/shield.html

Term and critical illness

Dear Tan Kin Lian,
Beside accidental, natural death and Total Permanent Disability, does Term Life Insurance cover the 36 critical Illness?Example: If someone purchase Term Life Insurance and unfortunately he die because of kidney failure (one of the 36 critical Illnesses).

REPLY
Term insurance pays on death for all causes, including death from all the critical illnesses (i.e. natural death).

A critical illness policy pays immediately on the covered critical illness (i.e. does not need to wait until death occurs). Hence, the critical illness pays earlier. The money can be used to treat the critical illness. The premium for cricial illness is higher than for term insurance, usually by about 50%.

If you are covered under a medical insurance policy, which can take care of the treatment of critical illness, you can buy a term insurance to cover death (instead of a critical illness policy).

Buy Term Insurance directly

Hi Mr Tan,
I would like to buy Term Insurance but am not sure if it can only be bought when tied to a living policy. Can you please advise if I can buy a Term Insurance by itself and if so, where?

REPLY
You can call the insurance companies shown on the attached FAQ:
http://www.tankinlian.com/faq/termd.html

Some of them may try to distract you to buy their whole life, critical illness or other products. You must insist on the Term insurance.

Here are some benchmark rates for you to consdier:
http://www.tankinlian.com/faq/benchmark.html

Let me know when you have made the final decision. All the best.

Register a Google account

It is easy to register a Google account to post comments in this blog. You only need to register it the first time. You will be asked to give your id and password when you wish to post a comment. This is not required for subsequent comments. You can ask the browser to remember your id and password, so that login is automatic.

With a Google account, you can create an Gmail account and even your own blog.

Posting in this blog

Someone made a posting in Online Citizen that this blog contains one sided views. I hope that it can contain a balance of views.

I welcome anyone with a different view to send it to me. I shall post their view, so long as it is expressed fairly. I will not post any personal attack or slanderous comments. I expect the person to be identified to me, but I will use a pseudonym (if they prefer).

I will give the right of reply to any person who feel that any posting in this blog give an unfair, incomplete or wrong presentation of their product or organisation.

If am willing to feature your product in this blog, if you can provide the answers to a few key questions that I ask. This will allow me to make an objective analysis.

I hope that my blog will attract a large number of people who find the views posted here to be useful and educational.

Jakarta 11-14 May

I will be in Jakarta for the next four days. I hope that the flood has subsided and I can get into Jakarta from the airport. There wil be less postings in my blog.