Blog - Insurance Agency Singapore | Commercial Insurance and Personal Insurance

Get Ready for $10 Oil

22 February 2015 By Digital Curator Leave a Comment

Image via Flickr user Olle Svensson

At about $50 a barrel, crude oil prices are down by more than half from their June 2014 peak of $107. They may fall more, perhaps even as low as $10 to $20. Here’s why.

U.S. economic growth has averaged 2.3 percent a year since the recovery started in mid-2009. That’s about half the rate you might expect in a rebound from the deepest recession since the 1930s. Meanwhile, growth in China is slowing, is minimal in the euro zone and is negative in Japan. Throw in the large increase in U.S. vehicle gas mileage and other conservation measures and it’s clear why global oil demand is weak and might even decline.

Oil Prices

At the same time, output is climbing, thanks in large part to increased U.S. production from hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling. U.S. output rose by 15 percent in the 12 months through November from a year earlier, based on the latest data, while imports declined 4 percent.

Something else figures in the mix: The eroding power of the OPEC cartel. Like all cartels, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is designed to ensure stable and above-market crude prices. But those high prices encourage cheating, as cartel members exceed their quotas. For the cartel to function, its leader — in this case, Saudi Arabia — must accommodate the cheaters by cutting its own output to keep prices from falling. But the Saudis have seen their past cutbacks result in market-share losses.

So the Saudis, backed by other Persian Gulf oil producers with sizable financial resources — Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — embarked on a game of chicken with the cheaters. On Nov. 27, OPECsaid that it wouldn’t cut output, sending oil prices off a cliff. The Saudis figure they can withstand low prices for longer than their financially weaker competitors, who will have to cut production first as pumping becomes uneconomical.

What is the price at which major producers chicken out and slash output? Whatever that price is, it is much lower than the $125 a barrel Venezuela needs to support its mismanaged economy. The same goes for Ecuador, Algeria, Nigeria, Iraq, Iran and Angola.

by A. Gary Shilling

See Full Story on bloombergview.com

Car Insurance: 11 Things Every Singaporean Driver Must Know

20 February 2015 By Digital Curator Leave a Comment

Finding the right car insurance plan can be like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey…but after six margaritas and a double blindfold. Before we even get started, let’s point out the obvious.

1. What am I Paying for?

How much you pay for the insurance plan depends on things like your driving record, your car model, your insurance history, etc.

2. Restrictions on the Driver

You may be a good driver, but your insurer doesn’t know if your spouse/children/drinking buddy is.

3. What extra cover can you buy?

You may be able to buy protection from things besides road accidents.

4. Make sure your bank approves.

If you’ve bought the car on a bank loan, you may be facing other requirements. Some banks won’t allow you to buy TPO (Third Party Only) car insurance.

5. The Excess

When you make a claim, the amount you have to pay is referred to as the excess. The rest of the cost is borne by your insurer.

6. Damage Assessment

Sadly, my assessment that my last collision resulted in “total demolition” wasn’t acceptable to my insurer. I had to take my car to an IDAC (Independent Damage Assessment Centre), where after the inspector stopped laughing, he defined the damage as “a small dent in the front bumper”.

7. Repair Restrictions

Insurers may insist you go only to specified workshops. Likewise, they may be finicky about who repairs the car, and what parts the mechanics can use.

8. No Claim Discount

The NCD (No Claim Discount) is a discount to your premium. You get this in increments of 10% when you don’t file any claims for the year, and it accumulates for each year without a claim.

9. Proper Procedures

I have a booklet on my insurer’s claim procedures. It’s about as accessible as a third year course in Greek poetry, so I just call the experts and ask instead.

10. Refunds and Penalties

Let’s say you’ve made a dire mistake, and brought your car to JB for some unsubtle modifications. As a result, your car now resembles a cruise missile more than a sedan.

11. Finding the Right Insurance

The right car insurance isn’t just about the lowest premiums. If you aren’t properly covered for an accident, cheap insurance is worse than no insurance.

by Ryan Ong

See Full Story on blog.moneysmart.sg

Do I Really Need to Buy Travel Insurance?

18 February 2015 By Digital Curator 1 Comment

What Travel Insurance Covers and How Much It Costs

You can get travel insurance from a number of sources: The airline or cruise carrier directly, an independent travel insurance agency, and, sometimes, your credit card. In general, travel insurance costs around 5 percent of your total trip. For a $4,300 trip, for example, I paid $158 for standard travel insurance with Allianz.

Trip cancellation and trip interruption insurance: This reimburses you non-refundable travel costs if your trip is cancelled or seriously delayed due to a natural disaster, illness, or the carrier goes out of business.

Baggage and personal items coverage: If someone steals something from your bag or your luggage is lost or delayed, travel insurance will pay you for your trouble, usually up to about $500 per lost baggage and $100-$300 per baggage delay.

Emergency medical insurance: Just as you wouldn’t want to go without medical insurance in everyday life, when you’re traveling abroad it’s important to stay covered in case of accidents.

Accidental death or dismemberment insurance: If you or a loved one dies on the trip or suffers a life-impairing accident (e.g., losing eyesight), this insurance feature pays out up to about $500,000, depending on the situation.

So Is It Worth It?

As with other insurance policies, buying travel insurance (or not buying it) is a gamble. You don’t want to ever regret not buying the insurance, but you also don’t want to pay for something you don’t need—and, looking at the list above, you might already be covered for some of these items elsewhere (e.g., you already have life insurance that covers death or dismemberment or health insurance that covers emergencies abroad).

Step One: Decide how much is at stake if something goes amiss on your trip. You probably don’t need travel insurance if you got one of those cheap $99 last-minute flights.

Step Two: Figure out if your credit card offers travel insurance. If it does, read the fine print to see if it would cover your insurance needs.

Step Three: Find out how much travel insurance costs for your trip. Use comparison site InsureMyTrip to compare independent agency policies available to you.

Finally, remember that you have to get insurance before your trip starts; it won’t protect you if you get the insurance after an accident happens or your trip is cancelled (that’s like trying to get home insurance after your house has already burned down).

by Melanie Pinola

See Full Story on lifehacker.com

Feb COE price on Chinese New Year period

17 February 2015 By Alex Tan Leave a Comment

The latest result of COE prices just before the Chinese New Year period has been released today at 4pm. I have been anticipating the drop in COE ever since the announcement of COE quota increase for Feb – Apr. Lets take a look at the latest results:

17th Feb 2015 4th Feb 2015

Cat A $57,199 $62,002

Cat B $66,751 $70,890

Cat C $53,202 $52,101

Cat D $5,800 $5,504

Cat E $67,901 $71,921

Huat Ah! Cat A, B and E (open) has dropped while commercial vehicles (Cat C) and motorcycle (Cat D) has increased further. So what will happen going forward to March and April? The increase in quota has helped push the price further down, it has at least given potential car owners a sigh of relief especially those whose car COE is expiring in 2015 or 2016 (the years when COE is approx. $10k)

The cost of owning a car might prove to be lower in the near future, given the price of petrol decreasing in the past few months. While many speculate oil prices will shoot back up soon, I have actually done some research that shows oil price might drop even further (will blog on an article soon). Nonetheless, if you are looking to buy a car soon, be optimistic! I strongly feel this year or next will be the best chance to buy before COE crazily goes back up again. Remember the basic speculation technique? Buy low Sell High. To reiterate, I would be looking to enter at $50k Cat A or $60k Cat B.

Probably its time to go window shopping at Leng Kee showrooms soon.

Data from One Motoring

10 things to look out for on your travel insurance

16 February 2015 By Digital Curator Leave a Comment

Image via Flickr user Moyan Brenn

Packing to go on holiday can be a bit of a slog, but the only items you essentially need are your passport (if you’re going overseas), money, travel documents – and your travel insurance.

1. Limits on trip duration

When selecting which travel insurance policy to go for, it’s important to check how many consecutive days abroad you’ll be covered for.

2. Destinations that might be excluded

Also check that your policy covers you for the destination you’re going to before you apply. It sounds obvious, but policies vary and if you don’t know what you’re looking for, they can be confusing.

3. Pre-existing conditions

It’s important that you are honest when it comes to any pre-existing medical conditions you have.

4. Action-packed holidays

Planning to take part in activities such as scuba diving, horse riding or bungee jumping on your holiday? Then you need to check that your travel insurance will cover you in the event you had an accident.

5. Limits on claims

Checking exactly how much you’ll be able to claim back in the event that you lost your wallet or had to cancel your holiday is also important.

6. How your belongings should be treated

Your insurer will expect you to take reasonable care of your belongings. If you’re found to be negligent, it could refuse to pay out.

7. How you should report a theft

Should you fall victim to theft, you’ll need to report it to the police as soon as possible.

8. If you miss a flight

We’ve all been there – stuck in traffic or caught up on a delayed train on the way to the airport, frantic with worry that we won’t catch the flight in time.

9. Alcohol and drugs policies

It’s easy to let your hair down when you’re on holiday, but most insurers won’t cover you if you’re involved in an accident when you’re under the influence of alcohol or non-prescription drugs.

10. Cancellations

Although you can buy your travel insurance policy on the day you are jetting off, it can pay to buy it at the same time as booking your holiday.

by Rachel Wait

See Full Story on moneysupermarket.com

Not Covered: Seven Caveats on Travel Insurance

13 February 2015 By Digital Curator Leave a Comment

Singaporeans are among the most avid travellers in Asia and travel insurance are commonly available. However, travellers would do well to know about some common sticky situations in which insurance claims may be refused.

1) Valuables and loss due to personal negligence

Travel insurance policies often explicitly state that the loss of personal valuables due to negligence is not covered.

Furthermore, some basic schemes also exclude the loss of jewelry in overseas trips, whether or not it is the result of negligence.

2) “Known Events”

Some insurers, such as NTUC Income, have a specific exclusion with regard to “Known Events”.

Claims arising out of such “known events” may thus not be admissible under the policy coverage.

3) Mode of transport

If you are going on packaged tours, you should be aware that occasionally, deaths and disabilities resulting only from travelling via public transportation (a.k.a. “public conveyance or common carrier”) are covered under the most basic of travel insurance packages.

4) Disease outbreaks

Although medical claims for illnesses contracted overseas are covered, insurers may stop short on compensating for losses from travel delay or air travel reschedule as a result of disease outbreaks.

5) Trip cancellations

In certain insurance policies, trip cancellations are valid for a small list of events which occur 30 to 60 days prior to departure. Such events may for example be limited to deaths or serious injuries to immediate family members or civil unrest at the destination countries.

6) Reporting of loss

As in the terms and conditions of most other forms of insurance, for travel insurance claims to be admitted, insurers generally require reports to be filed either with the police (or with parties such as airlines in the case of loss luggage) within 24 hours of the occurrence of the incident or accident.

7) Length of trips

For frequent travelers, insurers often offer a multi-trip “one-year plan” in which a travel insurance policy is in effect over a year and activation is not required for each trip. Despite the nature of such plans, such policies do provide not long term coverage.

See Full Story on singwealth.com

Golf: An Amazing Game

12 February 2015 By Alex Tan Leave a Comment

Golf, as it seems to many people, is a slow and boring game usually played by the older generation where they are into their retirement period and have plenty of time to spare. However in recent years, more and more young golfers are appearing on the golf courses.

I started playing when I was 14, remembering how my dad will drag me to learn when at that period I was only interested in soccer. It was a start-stop hobby as the interest wasn’t really there until when I started working in 2008. As age is catching up, soccer is definitely not a sport I can play for long as it is very much intensive and hence I have decided to take up golf as a full time hobby and totally commit my time into it.

Yesterday I had an interesting game with my usual kakis and would like to share with you guys. My flight mates consist of:

1. Alvin Tan, owner of Visual Tech Solutions, specialises in audio and video equipment.

2. Guy Tan, Director of E-Sarn, Thai restaurant in Singapore

3. Francis, mutual friend

It is inevitable for a golfer to be involves in bets, as many would say if there are no bets involved you won’t treat your game seriously. While I have individual bet with Alvin and Guy, we also played a team game known as VEGAS. It was a game at NSRCC Kranji and after completing the first 9 holes, I was already down $100 for VEGAS. I am not usually a heavy better and having lost $100 is considered a disaster for me. While I was playing a decent game and had actually lead in the individual games, it was quite surprising that I can lose so much for VEGAS, because it seems unlucky that my partner for each hole, either didn’t play well or the opposite team would score either par of birdie. So yes $100 down after first 9-holes.

While continuing our game with 8 holes remaining, Guy propose to play another team game known as Banker-Player. Ok so in my mind I was preparing to lose even more. Indeed the first banker player hole I lost another $20. Then came the turning point at hole 5, par 3 course. After teeing off, here is picture of where our balls have landed:

Ok so we have three balls, where is the fourth?? Well unfortunately the banker (Francis) got his ball into the hazard twice, which basically means game over for him. And can you guess which ball is mine? Alvin (left ball), Guy (center ball), me (right ball). YES MINE IS CLOSER TO THE HOLE AND ITS A BIRDIE CHANCE! Actually all three have a chance for birdie. However, I still need to score 1 better than the two of them in order to win more money from them to cover my losses. So here is the video of our putting results:

Yes the guy in green is Alvin and he MISS. The second is Guy and he ALSO MISS! ok par for them. I just need to birdied it, I didn’t ask anyone to video it as I know I will be distracted and miss it. So I just put my phone back into my pocket, walk up to the ball…..Putt…..BIRDIE! haha Ka-Ching $$$$. This was the hole that change my entire game. After completely 18 holes, we computed our bets and here are my results:

1. Individual with Alvin – Won $15

2. Individual with Guy – Won $25

3. Team game Vegas – Lost $60

4. Team game Banker-Player —- Won $45

Yes!! Overall Nett win of $25! That is why golf is such an amazing game. It is such that you might seem to be on the losing end, but you will never know until you put your 100% through it all and see the results. In life that is also a valuable lesson for us, we may fail to achieve things in our earlier stage of career, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end and game over for you. Keep pushing and trying and work harder, one day and who knows, success might come looking for you.

10 Reasons to Buy Travel Insurance For Your Trip

11 February 2015 By Digital Curator Leave a Comment

Travel insurance is a must-buy before any trip we take – because when you are stuck, there is nothing worse than not having the means to sort everything out. Insurance can make life much easier if something does occur while you are away especially in some of the scenarios highlighted below:

1. A culinary adventure in Pakistan brings you gastric problems, and you don’t want to spend hours and hours trying to convince somebody to attend you at the hospital, having a holiday insurance saves you money and time.

2. A terrorist act occurs at the airport. The airport is closed, all flights are cancelled. Who will assist you until the airport operates again?

3. Food poisoning during your mountain bike tour.

4. In dangerous neighborhoods you are assaulted.

5. A shark bite puts you in hospital.

6. Passports are worth a lot on the black market, so you can easily get pick pocketed.

7. You are involved in a bus accident when site-seeing in London.

8. You are on a business trip in New York, the taxi driver gets into trouble crashing with another car, and you get a broken tooth.

9. When visiting the Eiffel Tower, a nice couple asks to take a picture of them; jostling follows, and the camera accidentally ends up in pieces on the floor.

10. Hiking in a remote area, you suffer a fall and need to be medically evacuated to the nearest hospital for urgent surgery.

by Zhiqiang and Tingyi

See Full Story on passportchop.com

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

9 February 2015 By Digital Curator Leave a Comment

Image via Flickr user tec_estromberg

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? Decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself.

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time.

8. Don’t tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper?

by Heidi Grant Halvorson

See Full Story on hbr.org

COE Feb 2015 Bidding Results

7 February 2015 By Alex Tan Leave a Comment

The COE for February 15 has been released on the 04-02-15, it may be a bit late to blog about it but nonetheless lets just review on the latest prices. As I have mentioned in my earlier post on the increase of quota from Feb – Apr 2015, the prices for January and February 2015 are as followed:

Feb 15 Jan15

Cat A $62,002 $65,001

Cat B $70, 890 $76,889

Cat C $52,101 $55,011

Cat D $5,504 $4,403

Cat E $71,921 $75,200

The increase in supply definitely help pushed down the prices by a bit, with Cat B vehicles dropping the most at approximately $6k, with the exception of an increment for Cat D (Motor Cycle). Is this good enough? As the increase in quota is over a 3 month period, we should be able to guess how much more it will drop/increase come the 2nd bidding for February. In simple economics term (based on the Demand and Supply Curve), as prices drop, demand will increase such that probably more people will look into buying/changing cars in the next bidding exercise, so that might start to push the price higher again.

As I mentioned previously, buying a car nowadays is like speculating in share prices. Using the basic financial strategy of ‘Buy Low Sell High’ it’s pretty much about guessing when is the right time to enter. As we know CAT B has once soared to the high $90k, this price right now definitely much less expensive.

In my opinion, if prices for CAT A can drop to $50k and CATB $60k, i think it is consider a good price to enter. Some friends I have talked to are sceptical where they don’t believe it will drop to that $50k range, which they say ‘at most drop few k only’

Let’s just hope for the best