Finance & Insurance, Health, Solutions

New series focusing on major illnesses, treatment, costs and insurance

These past 3 years, I have had quite a number of clients diagnosed with major or even critical illnesses. Thankfully, all of them survived due to early detection, good healthcare in Singapore and adequate insurance that they have bought.

I will highlight some of the most interesting cases in a series of blog posts over the next few weeks to share with you some salient points I have learnt from each of these clients’ cases.

I will discuss the cause of their illnesses, the treatment regime, its short-term and long-terms costs and how much insurance can cover some of these costs.

The first case in this series is about “Cleo,” who was diagnosed with Colorectal cancer at the beginning of this year. Thankfully, she survived to tell her story and it is interesting because, even if you think you live a healthy lifestyle, you can still get cancer!

cancer-in-colon-rectum BW

 

Click here to see her story.

 

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Finance & Insurance, Solutions

[SG only] How to Reset your SingPass?

I was talking to my client over the phone about planning to buy an HDB flat while still servicing a mortgage for his Australian house and he couldn’t remember his SingPass to access his CPF statement. (I just remembered I can’t remember my SingPass too!) 😀

Now he needs to reset his SingPass but he hasn’t updated his 2FA (2-factor authentication) and he’s leaving for Australia tonight. What to do?

Well, the fastest & easiest way is to go to the nearest Community Centre in this list.

But what if you’re too busy to go to one of these centres?

Well you can now reset your SingPass online, if you have completed the 2FA registration, like you would for your Microsoft or Google Accounts with 2FA.

The procedure is fast and straightforward. You just key in your personal details + CAPTCHA (to proof you’re not a robot.) A One-Time Pin (OTP) will be sent to your pre-registered mobile number. Key in this OTP and on the next page, just key in your preferred SingPass.

Take note the SingPass needs to have a minimum of 8 alphanumberic characters so I suggest a good password manager that integrates with your browser and smartphone.

The last resort is to do it the old fashion way, which is to reset your SingPass without a mobile number here. After completing the form with CAPTCHA, CPF will mail the temporary PIN to your registered residential address. You will need to login within a specific timeframe and complete the 2FA registration with your mobile number upon login because 2FA is mandatory now. Finally you’d have to key in a new SingPass if I’m not wrong.

Any errors or updates, please leave a comment and I’d update the post.

All comments and questions are welcome. Be sure to like this article if it’s useful and share it with your friends and family, or colleagues who can benefit from it! Button are all over my website just waiting for you to click them! 🙂

Click the Follow Button button at the bottom right to receive more financial and insurance related article written by me! Or follow me on Twitter to see what I’m reading and writing.

 

Solutions

Solving Contact/Calendar sync issue in Windows 10 Mobile

If you’ve recently upgraded your Windows Phone 8.x to Windows 10 Mobile, you may encounter some lag in synching your contact and calendar with your Outlook or Outlook.com. The lag may be a few hours to never. I’ve even read the Microsoft Support forums of people hard resetting the phone to solve this problem.

This problem seems to be especially pervasive if you’re like me and your primary Microsoft Account is NOT a Microsoft domain like Hotmail.com, MSN.com or Outlook.com.

In Windows 8.x, all we needed to do was to go to Settings -> EMail account and long-tap to Sync the account manually. However, in Windows 10 Mobile, this is not possible anymore.

I’ve just discovered the reason and the solution. It’s actually very simple, but it may cost some battery life in the short-term.

As you can see from the screen caps, my primary Microsoft Account has an alias to a now defunct domain. This means that I don’t receive ANY email to this email account anymore.

By default, your email accounts (& by extension, Microsoft Account), is set based on your usage as shown in the 3rd screen cap.

If you regularly send and receive email, Windows 10 Mobile will internally set your Sync frequency to “as item arrive”, so whenever you receive an email, it is automatically pushed to your phone or tablet immediately.

However, if you don’t receive ANY email and only occasionally change items in your Contact or Calendar, Windows 10 Mobile will try to save battery by toggling the Sync frequency to “daily” or less.

All you need to do is to go to Settings -> Accounts -> Your email and accounts -> Tap <your primary Microsoft Account> or any other accounts where you’ve chosen to sync Contacts and/or Calendar -> Manage -> Change mailbox sync settings -> Download new content -> change to “as item arrive” -> Done -> Save.

Windows 10 Mobile will immediately sync your Contacts & Calendars, and will continue to do so immediately when you make any changes in Outlook or Outlook.com.

Note that your battery life may suffer a little so if you have less active accounts, you should set those to “based on my usage”.

All comments and questions are welcome. Be sure to like this article if it’s useful and share it with your friends and family, or colleagues who can benefit from it! Buttons are all over my website just waiting for you to click them! :)

Click the Follow Button button at the bottom right to receive more Tech related article written by me! Or follow me on Twitter to see what I’m reading and writing.

Finance & Insurance, Solutions

What to do if your S’pore car got into an accident in Malaysia

An unfortunate incident

It’s 11:59pm. You and your family has just celebrated a relative’s birthday and you’re driving back to Singapore from Malacca. Your kids are asleep at the back and you’re reminiscing with your spouse the great time spent with relatives & friends, many of whom you haven’t seen in years. It’s the end of a perfect day.

Bang! The car shuddered and the steering wheel jerked to the right, snapping out of your hands. You jammed on the brakes. The car swerved to the right and prowled into a ditch. Boom! The airbags deployed and a curse word left your mouth.

As your vision cleared, you begin to hear crying and car honks on top of the ringing in your ear. As you look around, you see 12:00am, your spouse looks dazed, your kids are up and crying but otherwise unhurt. You look outside and people & motorcycles are converging around your car and you thought, “What just happened?”

Motor accidents happen more often than you think

Events like this happen every hour of every day in Malaysia. According to statistics from Michigan University, Malaysia has a high road fatality rate of 30 per 100,000 people. There are roughly 6300 fatalities on Malaysia roads yearly. Obviously, the number of motor accidents with non-fatal injuries or no injuries are much higher.

My client recently got into an accident in Malacca. Fortunately, there was no bodily injury nor 3rd-party property damage. His car did its job and protected the occupants. However, it sustained serious damage to front-right suspension with cracked rim, destroyed tyre and tie-rod. There may be further damage to the undercarriage.

* For clarity, the information is accurate as of Feb 2016

Help is a few phone calls away

One of the first thing he did was call me. This is after 12am but I always tell my clients it’s ok to call me at any time if it’s an emergency. He wanted to know if it’s cheaper to repair his car in Malacca, or have it towed back to Singapore to be repaired at an AIG authorised workshop.

Since my mind isn’t exactly in gear yet, it’s almost 1am mind you, I gave him AIG 24/7 roadside assistance hotline so he can talk to the experts first. During this time, I pulled out his policy and went through the benefits.

AIG AutoPlus covers from Singapore to 80km north of the Thai-Malaysian border so towing back to Singapore (due to accident) is covered up to $500. Since he has NCD protector, even if he did an own damage claim, next year premium will not be adversely affected. With 50% NCD, he also has an excess waiver of up to $600.

I called the same AIG Hotline at around 1am to get additional information and to confirm the coverage terms & conditions but the call centre officer cannot provide claims information. They can only arrange roadside assistance, towing services and help manage emergency services if needed. They were also unable to quote towing charges in Malaysia because the service provider doesn’t operate at 1am, which is fair.

So next morning, I called AIG Claims department to confirm all the benefits for my client and also AIG Hotline to get the towing charges, which comes up to RM1450, of which RM200 is a non-claimable levy. The towing provider can provide towing service up to KL, so do take note if you intend to drive further north. The charges will be more!

AIG was very fast in providing these information, which I relayed to my client via WhatsApp.

SMSes gets expensive real fast when each message takes 3 SMSes to send! And these charges cannot be claimed under AIG AutoPlus. You need to buy a Travel insurance like AIG TravelGuard. And yes! You can buy a travel insurance when you self-drive in Malaysia!

Claims experience

For a normal car insured under AIG AutoPlus, the claim is pretty straight forward.

  • Report the accident to Malaysian police. This is important because it sets the facts right so in future, no one in Malaysia can send you a lawyer letter claiming you hit their car or property. Or if property damage occurred, there is document + photographic proof so the property owner cannot over-claim from you
  • Call AIG Hotline to arrange for the towing services from Malaysia
  • If you’re not following the tow truck, you need to prepare photocopies of your Passport, Driver License, Certificate of Insurance & LTA vehicle registration. This is needed for the tow truck driver to verify with Customs authorities the intention to send the car back to a Singapore workshop
  • (AIG didn’t mention this but I think it’s a good idea to photocopy the Malaysian Police report just in case)
  • Pay RM1450 to the tow-truck driver, you can claim back RM1250 from AIG or up to $500 depending on exchange rates
  • Repairs done at AIG Authorised workshop enjoy up to $600 excess waiver, so if your excess is less than $1200, you don’t have to pay anything
  • When you get back to Singapore, you get to enjoy up to 10 days of free Replacement Vehicle
  • Lastly, you need to produce the Malaysian Police report and file an Accident Report as per GIA guideline immediately upon returning to Singapore, or earliest possible if you or your occupant sustained injuries

What happens if you drive a high-cc or sports car and your excess is very high, like $3000? This is when it may make sense to engage a workshop in Malaysia if, 1) it’s a trustworthy workshop & 2) the damage is not too severe. So how do you calculate when it’s worth to repair in Malaysia? (This assumes SGD:MYR exchange rate at 1:3)

  1. If your car got into an accident north of KL, the towing charges increase beyond RM1450. Let’s say it’s Malacca, so only RM200 cannot be claimed
  2. At $3000 excess, the excess waiver only covers $600, so you need to fork out $2400 or RM7200
  3. If the repairs cost less than RM7400, you may consider getting it done in Malaysia if you know the workshop because it means you get to drive the car back
  4. If your NCD is NOT 50% and/or you don’t have NCD Protector, during the next renewal the NCD will drop 30%! Which translate to a huge increase in premium, meaning you may prefer to take the risk in Malaysia since it’ll take 3 years to get back this 30% NCD and you will suffer 3 years of high insurance premium

Getting your car done in Malaysia does carry the risk that the workshop may not spot all the problems and repair everything. If you return to Singapore and the car breaks down, you still have to send your car to an AIG Authorised workshop and you’d STILL incur the excess of $3000, which you have to co-pay $2400.

I don’t see much information on this topic when I searched online so I hope my article will help someone in future in this kind of unfortunate event.

So far, my experience with AIG Motor claims & Emergency Hotline has been very positive. I have no problem encouraging my AIG Motor insurance clients to explore Malaysia at their leisure. It’s a great country to visit, as I’ve done on numerous occasions with no problems at all, not to mention our favourable exchange rates makes everything cheaper! 🙂

Published: 8 March 2016
Update 1: 9 March 2016 – Grammer & new facts

All comments and questions are welcome. Be sure to like this article if it’s useful and share it with your friends and family, or colleagues who can benefit from it! Button are all over my website just waiting for you to click them! 🙂

Click the Follow Button button at the bottom right to receive more financial and insurance related article written by me! Or follow me on Twitter to see what I’m reading and writing.

Fatherhood, Finance & Insurance, Man Matter, Solutions

Maximising the Supplementary Retirement Scheme

What is SRS?

Most people are familiar with CPF OA, SA & MediSave, and what you can do with each account. CPF also manages another account for Singaporeans/PRs & even Foreigners, it called Supplementary Retirement Scheme or SRS.

SRS is primarily used as a tax relief scheme in Singapore due to the compulsory Minimum Sum Scheme that feeds in the CPF Life pension fund for Singaporeans & PR. For Foreigners, who lack other means of tax relief, the maximum SRS tax relief is higher.

Most people who contribute to SRS knows you can use 100% of the funds for saving and investment purposes. However, due to the volatility of the markets this past few years, many had withheld their investments.

Tax Relief

If you go to IRAS website, you can find the Tax calculator. For readers earning more than $50,000 gross income, it’s worth taking a look at it even if your other Tax reliefs reduces your Tax liability to roughly $1000 per year. If your gross income is more than $100,000, it’s time to pay attention!

Assuming you have max out all your other relief and you still have to pay a sizable income tax every year, SRS is a viable tax relief to consider. Check out the table below.

This table is for calendar year 2015 where assessment is done in 2016. Maximum SRS is $12,750 for Singaporeans & PRs, and $29,750 for foreigners. For the purpose of illustration, I’m ignoring the 50% rebate (capped at $1000) on payable Income Tax due to SG50, and the table is calculated for Singaporeans and PRs only. Foreigners will jump down 2 tax brackets so the potential tax savings is doubled!

Income bracket after other relief Tax payable Tax Payable after SRS Tax Savings
$40,000.00 $550.00 $145.00 $405.00
$50,000.00 $1,250.00 $453.75 $796.25
$60,000.00 $1,950.00 $1,057.50 $892.50
$70,000.00 $2,650.00 $1,757.50 $892.50
$80,000.00 $3,350.00 $2,457.50 $892.50
$90,000.00 $4,500.00 $3,157.50 $1,342.50
$100,000.00 $5,650.00 $4,183.75 $1,466.25
$120,000.00 $7,950.00 $6,483.75 $1,466.25
$130,000.00 $9,450.00 $7,633.75 $1,816.25
$140,000.00 $10,950.00 $9,037.50 $1,912.50
$150,000.00 $12,450.00 $10,537.50 $1,912.50
$160,000.00 $13,950.00 $12,037.50 $1,912.50
$170,000.00 $15,650.00 $13,537.50 $2,112.50
$180,000.00 $17,350.00 $15,182.50 $2,167.50
$190,000.00 $19,050.00 $16,882.50 $2,167.50
$200,000.00 $20,750.00 $18,582.50 $2,167.50
$210,000.00 $22,550.00 $20,282.50 $2,267.50
$220,000.00 $24,350.00 $22,055.00 $2,295.00
$230,000.00 $26,150.00 $23,855.00 $2,295.00
$240,000.00 $27,950.00 $25,655.00 $2,295.00
$250,000.00 $29,750.00 $27,455.00 $2,295.00
$260,000.00 $31,550.00 $29,255.00 $2,295.00
$270,000.00 $33,350.00 $31,055.00 $2,295.00
$280,000.00 $35,150.00 $32,855.00 $2,295.00
$290,000.00 $36,950.00 $34,655.00 $2,295.00
$300,000.00 $38,750.00 $36,455.00 $2,295.00
$310,000.00 $40,550.00 $38,255.00 $2,295.00
$320,000.00 $42,350.00 $40,055.00 $2,295.00
$330,000.00 $44,350.00 $41,855.00 $2,495.00
$340,000.00 $46,350.00 $43,800.00 $2,550.00
$350,000.00 $48,350.00 $45,800.00 $2,550.00
$500,000.00 + $78,350.00 $75,800.00 $2,550.00

It is important to note that SRS tax relief should be viewed as a tax deferment scheme because after you retire, any funds withdrawn will STILL be subjected to Income Tax. Fortunately, only 50% of the withdrawn amount is taxable.

Investment opportunities for SRS funds

SRS pays out a 0.5% interest per annum, which until last year was an attractive safe investment return compared to Fixed Deposit. Investors looking for higher returns typically invest in unit trust funds or structured funds of some sort. However, higher risks funds are negatively impacted recently due to market forces.

Fortunately, AIA just introduced a new product in 2015 to cater to savvy investors looking for a safer investment instrument while beating inflation. As I’m not allowed to advertise any insurance & investment products, all I can say is this is an SRS lump sum endowment product that gives a guaranteed monthly annuity for a period of 15 or 20 years starting from the retirement age.

For more information, please email me directly and reference this article in the email.

Limitations of SRS

To prevent money laundering and tax evasion, limitations are placed on SRS funds, whether invested or not.

There is a limit on how much cash you can inject into SRS to qualify for tax relief. This figure is revised yearly. For example, maximum SRS tax relief is $12,750 for FY2015 while in FY2016, this is increased to $15,300 for Singaporeans/PRs and $35,700 for foreigners.

Withdrawals from SRS are also governed by a strict set of rules which can be found here. The most important of which is, early withdrawal before the statutory retirement age causes the withdrawal amount to be 100% taxable + a 5% penalty on the withdrawal amount. Investment returns are also 50% taxable even after the statutory retirement age.

Despite these restrictions, if your investment returns can beat the penalty + additional load to your Income Tax for that year, it’s still a worthwhile tax relief.

All comments and questions are welcome. Be sure to like this article if it’s useful and share it with your friends and family, or colleagues who can benefit from it! Button are all over my website just waiting for you to click them! 🙂

Click the Follow Button button at the bottom right to receive more financial and insurance related article written by me! Or follow me on Twitter to see what I’m reading.

 

Finance & Insurance, Health, Solutions

How the new Medisave Additional Withdrawal Limit affect your AIA HealthShield?

Many of my clients have received letters from AIA explaining the new MediSave Additional Withdrawal Limits (AWL) and their first questions is, “Will I have to pay more cash?”

The answer is fortunately, NO!

The new AWL actually INCREASE your withdrawal limit which can be used to pay for your AIA HealthShield plans, so you have to pay less cash if you’re nearing retirement or already retired.

I’ve done up a new post with Tables showing the before/after of how much you need to top up in cash. Check it out below.

AIA HealthShield Gold Max Additional Withdrawal Limit Table

Once I get some sleep, I’d update my original Integrated Plans article to include the latest published information from MOH.

Solutions

[Chinese Version] YiSpecter: Another iOS Malware That Attacks Non-jailbroken Apple iOS Devices

3周前,帕洛阿尔托单位 42 发布 IOS XCodeGhost 恶意软件已经感染苹果商店内的39个软件 现在他们发布了新的恶意软件 YiSpecter感染苹果越狱iPhone 和 iPad。 YiSpecter 使用许多攻击媒介实现黑客攻击。最大的区别是它使用企业证书私人API

级别复杂通常是先进持久性威胁(APT),而简单感染有关。由于苹果商店非常严格检查他们级别成熟会感染非越狱设备。

不是这个公司YingMob Interaction)的科技真的很好。因为这5年来已经有很多这类型的恶意软件被广泛使用。

总之YiSpecter 主要针对中国台湾的 iPhone iPad 用户。也许黑客只针对通过简化中文用户。YiSpecter 开始是受感染网站,Windows 的腾讯 QQ 聊天软件,论坛内发出的HTML文件,目标是在 IOS 屏幕显示色情网址

IOS 8 设备如果用户单击对话框中让网址下载应用程序自动安装,因为包含一个偷来,有效企业证书 IOS 9,必须切换权限安装企业应用程序所以用户受到保护。
然而如果您已经 IOS 8 升级可能仍然感染。因为 YiSpecter 自我保护可以传播感染作为一个僵尸网络一部分,而且它有隐藏的功能

如果知道更多关于YiSpecter详情,请参见篇文章结尾。

要去毒按照说明:
  1. 在 iOS, 设置 ==》 通用 ==》描述文件,删除所有未知不受信任配置文件;
  2. 删除这些软件,“情涩播放器”,“快播私密版” 或 “快播0”;
  3. 使用任何第三方 iOS 管理工具,例如 iFunBox Windows 或者 Mac OS X,连接iPhone iPad注意苹果 iTunes 不能使用);
  4. 管理工具检查所有已安装iOS 应用程序;如果一些应用程序名字比如手机, 天气, 游戏中心, 存折, 笔记 Cydia,请把它们删除(请注意步骤不会影响原始系统应用程序只是伪造删除恶意软件)。

资料来源:
YiSpecter: First iOS Malware That Attacks Non-jailbroken Apple iOS Devices by Abusing Private APIs

Solutions

YiSpecter: Another iOS Malware That Attacks Non-jailbroken Apple iOS Devices

It’s less than 3 weeks since Unit 42 from Palo Alto published the IOS XCodeGhost malware that has infected 39 apps in Apple App Store. And they’re at it again! This time Unit 42 published findings on the malware YiSpecter, which uses many attack vectors with the key differentiator being Enterprise certificates & Private API to implement the hack.

This level of sophisticated is usually associated with Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)rather than a simple infection but since Apple Store has very strict checks, I guess they have to go to this level of sophistication in order to infect non-jailbroken devices.

Now I’m not saying that this malware company (YingMob Interaction) is really good, but they did “go the extra mile” to ensure a successful widespread infection by borrowing APT techniques published over the past 5 years.

In summary, YiSpecter mainly targets iPhone & iPad users in China & Taiwan, so maybe the hackers only target Simplified Chinese language users. The infection starts from infected websites, Windows-based IM platform like Tencent’s QQ Chat and forums where malicious HTML files are posted & displayed on the target IOS screen.

On IOS 8 devices, if the user click on dialog box to allow downloading the app, it is automatically installed because it contain a stolen but valid Enterprise certificate. On IOS 9, you have to switch on the permission to install Enterprise app, so new users are protected. However, if you’ve upgraded from IOS 8, it’s likely you’re still infected because YiSpecter is self-preserving, can spread the infection as part of a Botnet and is hidden from the user.

I wouldn’t go into the mechanism of the infection because it’s too technical for average users. You can find the link to the original Palo Alto notice at the end of the article.

To Clean the infection, you have to do the below:

  1. In iOS, go to Settings -> General -> Profiles to remove all unknown or untrusted profiles;
  2. If there’s any installed apps named “情涩播放器”, “快播私密版” or “快播0”, delete them;
  3. Use any third-party iOS management tool (e.g., iFunBox, though note that Apple’s iTunes doesn’t work in this step) on Windows or Mac OS X, to connect with your iPhone or iPad;
  4. In the management tool, check all installed iOS apps; if there’re some apps have name like Phone, Weather, Game Center, Passbook, Notes, or Cydia, delete them. (Note that this step won’t affect original system apps but just delete faked malware.)

Source:
YiSpecter: First iOS Malware That Attacks Non-jailbroken Apple iOS Devices by Abusing Private APIs

Solutions

[Chinese version] Malware XcodeGhost Infects 39 iOS Apps, Including WeChat, Affecting Hundreds of Millions of Users

Palo Alto单位 42 发现恶意软件 XcodeGhost 感染 39 iOS 应用程序包括微信影响以亿计用户

现在很多受影响公司更新他们苹果官方集成设计环境重新发布他们应用程序,请更新受影响软件如果无法更新应用程序,还更好暂时删除它。

务必更改应用程序密码 AppleID 密码因为这些密码有可能已经黑客骗走了

以下是Palo Alto & FOX-IT所公布的清单

网易云音乐  2.8.3
微信  6.2.5
讯飞输入法  5.1.1463
滴滴出行  4.0.0.6-4.0.0.0
滴滴打车  3.9.7.1 – 3.9.7
铁路12306  4.5
下厨房  4.3.2
51卡保险箱  5.0.1
中信银行动卡空间  3.3.12
中国联通手机营业厅  3.2
高德地图  7.3.8
简书  2.9.1
开眼  1.8.0
Lifesmart  1.0.44
网易公开课  4.2.8
马拉马拉  1.1.0
药给力  1.12.1
喜马拉雅  4.3.8
口袋记账  1.6.0
同花顺  9.60.01
快速问医生  7.73
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