About Insurance

My financial consultant and friend, Ian, recently did an insurance audit with hubby and me. It was a great session and thought I share the goodness of it here.

But first what’s an insurance audit?

Most likely you will hear of auditors coming to your work organisation to audit the accounts. The dictionary meaning would be to conduct an official financial inspection of an organization’s accounts, typically by an independent body.

Similarly, insurance audit is a check done on your insurance policies by a financial consultant to ensure you have paid no more or less than the appropriate premium for your exposure or coverage (quoted from a business insurance audit article).

No insurance to audit?

If you don’t even have insurance to audit, then it’s even more pertinent to meet up with Ian or your financial consultant. But I know of people, including my dad, who are quite resistant in getting insurance policies. Perhaps it’s the negative light shed on insurance agents in the past. The pushy agents who just want your money instead of selling for your benefit and you are seemingly paying for “nothing”, at least in short term.

I was hesitant to write a post about the touchy topic of insurance, until I saw this interview clip of Joanna Dong (董姿彦) by AC Studio. She is the jazz singer who came in as 2nd Runner-Up in Sing! China 2017. In the video, she was strongly encouraging freelancers to get insurance. It is a real good piece of advice that’s relevant to uninsured people too. Hence, I joined in the foray to encourage more people to buy insurance!

Ian also shared with us situations, including his personal stories, about how medical bill can run really high. Uninsured person might have to sacrifice hospital comfort. Comfort might sound superficial, but having stayed in hospital after giving birth, I know how 1 bedder and 4 bedder really makes a difference. A tired and sick patient would want a good night’s rest and not disturbances from other patients.

Moreover, if the patient is uninsured and unable to pay for the exorbitant private medical fee, then he had to join the queue and wait longer to get government medical care. An insured patient would have gotten better and faster medical care, and for less.

Yes, you might say, the insurance companies just consolidate my premiums and then pay me back. But the payout will usually be more than what you have paid. In any case, you are paying premiums when you can still afford it. With no insurance, there is a chance you have to cough out the money when you are too sick to work, aka no income. If you really know how to save and grow your money for future medical expenses, then by all means don’t get the insurance.

I get a bit agitated here because I’ve tried to persuade my dad to get insurance but he brushed me off. And now, his recent health scare confirmed my fears of what will usually happen without insurance. It’s not like life changing bad news, but his medical care and comfort could have been better. So I’m still trying to persuade him, we don’t want to wait until the critical moment to hit ourselves on the head.

What did the insurance audit do for us?

Anyway back to insurance audit. My hubby wrote this testimonial for Ian:

First Birthday - baby.joogostyle.com

The audit not only helped hubby saved about 31% in yearly premiums, but it also increases his insurance coverage! My premium remained about the same, but my coverage increased by 300%. 🙂 Anyway, having premium reduction was good news and timely for us. We were looking to trim our expenses as much as possible because of the addition of our new family member, baby Evangeline!

But that doesn’t mean our old policies were lousy buys, but they were the best available at the point of purchase. Insurance companies are constantly coming up with better policies. Moreover, insurance is now becoming such a complex and dynamic financial tool that it’s good to re-look at them once in a while.

You don’t want to find out at the critical moment when you need the insurance that you are not well covered and are getting less than what you have expected. Then also the heartache that you have been overpaying the premiums all this while.

You can also read this Forbes article about “Why An Audit of your Life Insurance Policies is Important“.

What happens during an insurance audit by Ian?

Ian looked through what we had. Sidenote, it’s good to keep an excel spreadsheet to record down the pertinent details of your insurance policies – e.g. policy name and number, coverage amount, etc. This gives you a bird eye’s view of what you have and is especially useful during emergencies. Save you from digging out all your policies, and missing out on one or two in the process.

Anyway, Ian looked through what we had and suggested:

  • Policies we should continue holding on to and not change anything
  • Policies we can decrease in coverage and thus premiums (like I said, we’re finding ways to decrease our expenses), and
  • Policies that we should consider switching, to a better prevailing insurance plan that is.

For all the recommendations he made, he will list down the pros and cons. Then, he left the choice entirely up to us without being pushy. That’s what I like about Ian.

First Birthday - baby.joogostyle.com

Why Ian and Finexis?

I also like the fact that financial consultants (“consultants”) at Finexis have the liberty to pick and choose from a variety of insurance companies to best suit my needs. Of course, there might be biasness, as different companies offer different incentives to the consultants. So it all depends on the consultant’s integrity.

Before Ian, my consultant was also from Finexis. She went on to have children and took a career break. My policies were then handed to another agent whom I don’t know. Hence I requested to have my policies go under hubby’s consultant, Ian. Hubby has been with him for 8 years and counting!

Technically, we are all friends to begin with, and I have seen Ian in action before. Like I said, he’s not pushy and that’s a big plus for me. I don’t like to be pressured to buy plans, schemes, things, etc. Moreover, Ian comes off as a genuine person. He would suggest suitable policies and coverage for us, and not simply suggest the most expensive policies or to increase our premiums for unnecessary coverage.

And I really think he lived out Finexis tagline, Impacting Lives Beyond Finance. Creating a lasting, positive influence on the lives we touch.” His team would invite their clients to movie screenings and organise seminars to help their clients in their career and personal lives. Like once, he invited hubby and I to “Gallup Strengthsfinder” seminar. He paid out of his pocket for the seminar fees and the test. It’s for us to discover our strengths to help in our career development – to build our career based on our strengths. With no strings attached.

Finexis’s website: www.finexis.com.sg

Interested?

According to Ian, his first meeting with client will usually take only 30 minutes. It’s a get to know each other session and for him to understand your needs. So no harm taking that 30 minutes to improve your protection and budgeting. You can call or WhatsApp Ian at +65 9061 7082.

If you are contacting Ian because of what you read here, please tell him so! I like to know that even though I’m not the one selling, my words are making an impact on lives too. That’s the whole point about my writings anyway, to provide useful information and impact the lives of my readers! 🙂