Buy Insurance, Get Insurance Audit.
This post was first written by me at joogostyle.com in Jun 2018.
Ian, my financial consultant and friend, did an insurance audit for hubby and me. It was a great session and so here I am sharing the goodness of it.
What’s an insurance audit?
You might have heard of financial auditors coming to your company/organisation to audit the accounts. Dictionary meaning of audit — to conduct an official financial inspection of an organization’s accounts, typically by an independent body.
Similarly, insurance audit is when a financial consultant reviews and assesses your insurance policies. According to a business insurance audit article, this is to ensure you have paid no more or less than the appropriate premium for your exposure or coverage.
No insurance to audit? Buy.
Skip this section if you have insurance. Read this if you don’t. Share this if you know someone who doesn’t have insurance plans.
If you don’t have any insurance to be audited, then it’s more pertinent to meet up with a financial consultant. I know of people who resist in getting insurance policies. Perhaps it’s the negative light shed on insurance agents in the past. The pushy agents that’s more focused on their profits than your benefits. And how you seem to be paying for “nothing” in the foreseeable short term.
I hesitated to write 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 real good advice to the uninsured people in general. Hence, I joined her to encourage more people to buy insurance!
Moreover, Ian shared with us situations, including his personal stories, about how medical bill can run really high. Even with high medical bill, the uninsured person might have to sacrifice hospital comfort. Comfort might sound superficial, but having stayed in a public hospital for my birth and tuberculosis treatment, I can tell you there’s a difference between 1, 4 and 6 bedder wards. A tired and sick patient would want a good night’s rest and not disturbances from other patients.
It’s also true that even without insurance, a patient in Singapore can still get medical care. He just had to wait longer to get a hospital bed and government medical care. An insured patient would have gotten better and faster medical care, and for lower cost.
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. Without insurance, you might have to cough out the money when you are too sick to work, when you have no salary.
However, if you excel in saving and growing your money for future medical expenses, you might not need to get insurance. Get a financial consultant to advise you.
How did the insurance audit benefited us?
Anyway back to insurance audit. My hubby wrote this testimonial for Ian:
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 EX! (Note: this post was first written in 2018.)
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.
Why Ian and Finexis?
Getting Ian, other than your financial consultant, to audit your existing insurance policies is like getting a second opinion.
Ian is from Finexis, and I 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. 😉
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