There has been so much discussion on the recent education debate on the weightage of the mother tongue examination in primary school level. Indeed, mother tongue may have been hard for us to learn, and not everyone is able to cope with two languages. But sometimes I feel that the arguments used against mother tongue is really weird.

I remember someone once wrote to the forum and argued that there are people who are good in all subjects other than the mother tongue, and so mother tongue should be reduced to have lesser impact on scores. That’s retarded. There are people who are good in all subjects other than english too! So that’s not a logical argument!

But what I think is that there is some truth with respect to mother tongue being too difficult. But I also agree that reducing the weightage would result in people allocating less importance and time to the language. So perhaps what we should all look into is to change the way we conduct the lesson? Make mother tongue fun so that it would be interesting. Language doesn’t have to be boring.

But I guess we’re in a national crisis now. You need good teachers to bring out the fun in any subject and adopt innovative ways that make it easier to learn. But yet, after having decades of using the wrong method to teach (hey this is what our MM said ok), we have perhaps produced very few people genuinely interested in the language. And from the small pool of people who end up pursuing mother tongue as a major, we would not have much choice of selection. And from that, it would mean we won’t have the best talents teaching the language.

And this is a vicious cycle. The teacher isn’t good, and hence the student won’t be great either. Mother tongue continues to be boring and difficult. Students continue to shun it, and they become the teachers and the cycle continues. It doesn’t help when people see teaching as a tough job. Plenty of people do not want to become a teacher. Tough time, long working hours, CCAs on top of making homework. Having to organize school activities on top of the already heavy workload. And not so high pay. We can’t attract true talents to pursue a career in teaching. And this contributes to the problem.

So maybe we should tackle all these issues first. Having advertisements on “If you said both, you should be a teacher” or “Leave no child behind” simply does not make me feel like being a teacher. After tackling the issues and making mother tongue fun, then can we consider the rest. We should exhaust all means before reducing the importance of mother tongue. Other people are learning Mandarin already. Why should we forsake the things we have built? My generation has gone through it and survived, so we should all try to continue trying to be bilingual. And bilingual might not mean being good at both language. I just feel that knowing the language and being able to use it in normal everyday conversation is also good enough. It would be sad to have our future generation only care about english and what is practical. The beauty of other languages must not be eroded. We must protect the culture behind the languages.

Do you all remember the advertisement from OCBC where they tried to portray their warm nature and how they value each customer by noticing that the cute daughter is drawing a birthday card for mum, and then they bought a birthday cake and sang a song as a surprised for the delighted mother?

Well some blogger actually did that, all in good fun I guess, but a little too much in my opinion. You can read her story here. I did glance through the comments, and as I expected, there are supporters and there are people who criticize the blogger. I myself have some comments about this whole “prank” which I thought I’ll share on my blog rather than as a comment and risk getting flamed. I’ll try to do it in an objective manner.

Fun
I think I must at least commend the blogger on her attitude to cheekily demand a birthday cake from OCBC. I think spontaneity is something lacking in the Singapore culture, and we should all try to inject a little fun in our daily lives. This reminds me of the video where a group of people sang their orders to McDonalds via the song “I’m yours”. It is a little fun to inject in our daily monotonous lives. But..

A little overboard
I think it has gone a little overboard that it needs to take that long and that much effort to demand a birthday cake. After a while it starts to feel less fun, and getting a little draggy I would say. In fact, in my opinion, getting a birthday cake by forcing them to become desperate doesn’t seem like my idea of fun. If I were to do that, I would probably cease the “prank” and go home. There’s just not much pleasure in getting that cake anymore.

Misleading advertisement?
Some people commented that this shows that the advertisement is misleading. I think any sane people would scold you and say, “In what sense is that advertisement misleading?” But before you come to any conclusions, just finish my post first. I do not think that the advertisement is misleading, because the advertisement’s purpose was to show their warm and caring side. To show that they notice the minute details and is meticulous in their job. The advertisement was not to say “Come and join us on the Sunday Banking on your birthday. We will give you a free cake and a nice warm happy birthday song”. Hence in this case, the advertisement was not misleading. Advertisement’s purposes is to get you to understand the hidden meaning, or to portray a sense of emotion in a person. In this case, it is to portray a warm feeling, the feeling that goes “OCBC cares for me”. Not the birthday cake. Anyone automatically assuming that the advertisement is advertising about a free cake needs more education. So those people who claim misleading advertisements are seriously mentally backward.

Why mentally backward? From another perspective, we wouldn’t assume POSB tellers know each of us and our children, and when it rains they bring an umbrella to shelter our kids home, do we? We wouldn’t assume that using that cream thing on your knees would allow you to rapidly accelerate a trishaw to the same speed as a car? Or drinking Tiger Beer would allow you to become Tarzan or some strong arm person? Or a pretty girl. Maybe tiger beer would make you drunk until you feel like becoming a girl.

Advertisement is ALSO misleading
Now would you scold me? I said that it is not misleading but now I said it is misleading. What kind of nonsense is this? It is misleading because OCBC staff are not warm at all! They are not meticulous because they took the I/C from the blogger and did not notice that it is her birthday! Now, a simple happy birthday would suffice and make a customer happy wasn’t it? Not to mention that they found it so hard to offer a “Happy birthday” which cost nothing and wouldn’t hurt anyone. In this way, the advertisement is misleading. They mislead the public into believing that OCBC’s staff is passionate, caring, fun, spontaneous and believes that they can do more to improve their level of service. Whether they are “delighted to be of service”, as mentioned in the ad, remains much to be seen.

Establishments only want your money
Some people commented that you shouldn’t expect anything because banks only want your money. And applauded the blogger for getting a birthday cake since they use our money. Personally I think that is stupid. Some complain about low interest rates. That’s utterly stupid. We have a right not to put our money in this bank. There’s so many other banks. Besides, all of them offer low interest rates. Look at the 3 month Treasury Bills. The rate is 0.6%. It is pathetic. Lousier than inflation. If anyone has any sense to beat inflation, we would be looking at alternative investments.

Some people complain about banks not refunding the money when the principals are lost in some funds. Well, putting aside mis-selling, if mis-selling did not occur, all of the customers would have knowledge that the principals are not guaranteed and there is investment risk. As such, they willingly took on those risks. It is utterly retarded to ask the bank to refund the money if mis-selling did not occur. There are no investments in the world that are guaranteed and have high returns. Face the fact and stop whining about it.

No matter what, banks are businesses too. You don’t run a business to lose money; you make money. Hence there are some things banks cannot do so that they can reduce their costs. If banks were to guarantee all investments, they would lose a lot of money in a recession! No matter how banks portray themselves to be, the consumers must be witty enough to understand that advertisements do not portray absolute truth.

Banks keep your money for you in a relatively safe place compared to inside your house, and you get money on top of it, although the sum is pathetic. The interest generate on loaning money out pays for your free parking of money in the bank. If we think of it as a transaction, we would have also gained. A win-win I would say.

That said, it was still a fun attempt that backfired. I quite pity the staff on the grounds because it would seem like they are facing an unreasonable customer. If it had ended earlier with a smile, the whole thing would be perfect.

I quote the entire forum letter that appeared in The Straits Times today. After reading it I felt a little need to address some of the fallacies inside this forum letter, fallacies which made me question if our Press Secretary has gone to university. At least I know I have learnt what fallacies are.

Anyway a little background. Recently the government (this is a confusing word) has decided to allow Potong Pasir and Hougang to have lift upgrading programs. After countless years of PAP wards first, I think this is a huge relieve for the many people in these two parts of Singapore, which didn’t see much development ever since they were “captured” by the opposition. And I actually was proud of this, until it seemed to be a little political move, which was clever, in my opinion.

The grassroots advisor was the one to helm this project, not the members of parliament, who were elected representatives of that area. And who are this advisors? They are the people who lost to the existing MPs. I think this is a sly and clever move because it gives the advisors more exposure, and may sway voters more in the next election.

So there were numerous complains and articles being written, and this is the latest one. In this letter, it is said that the government appointed advisor assists in implementing national programs. Well that sounds al-right other than there’s only two such advisors in Singapore since the rest are already “capable” of implementing national programs.

But what irks me is that the press secretary wrote that the lift upgrading program is a program that receives money from the government. And opposition MPs do not answer to the ruling party. And then there’s the word called Government.

And here I naively thought that the opposition MPs also formed the government. I thought the government was a collective term for all the elected representatives. Since when did the citizens approve the thesaurus change to say PAP = Government? That’s a dangerous line here.

If the lift upgrading program was government funding, does this mean that it is PAP funding? If it is not PAP funding, then shouldn’t the government include the opposition? If it actually means PAP funding, then we are in deep shit right now. What if the opposition wins (which I do not foresee for a few more decades)? Does it mean our money is gone?

I’m sure it does not. Our tax money should be government money, no matter which party forms the majority of the government.

So I’m confused. Because surely what they mean by government is the PAP. And this is a slippery slope because we’ll always associate government to be PAP, which may not hold true forever. In the first place, government should include the opposition, no?

Well, remind me why Singaporean’s are politically apathetic. Maybe they just got sick of all this. I, am starting to feel sick.

Advisers and MPs have different roles

IN HER commentary last Thursday, ”Adviser over MP’ raises many questions’, Ms Sue-Ann Chia has misunderstood the roles of Members of Parliament (MPs) and advisers to grassroots organisations.

The MP is elected by the people of a constituency, and represents them in and outside Parliament.

In Singapore, MPs also have an important role in running town councils. As provided for in the Town Councils Act, this role includes managing the common property of HDB estates and carrying out local improvement projects, thereby contributing to the well-being of the people of the constituency.

As for the government-appointed adviser, his main role is to assist in implementing national programmes, such as government campaigns, and HDB’s upgrading programmes, including the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP).

The roles of MP and adviser are distinct and separate, even though government MPs, wearing their other hat of advisers, are expected to perform both roles.

Opposition MPs cannot be appointed advisers, because they do not answer to the ruling party. They have no constitutional or legal obligation to carry out national programmes on the Government’s behalf. Nor can the Government hold them to account if they perform this role unsatisfactorily.

Let me re-emphasise that the LUP is not a town council programme. It is a national programme which receives most of its funding from the Government.

Therefore, in opposition wards, it is the government-appointed adviser who is accountable for implementing national programmes like the LUP. In doing so, the adviser will work closely with the local town council and residents.

Lim Yuin Chien
Press Secretary to the
Minister for National Development

I managed to get tickets to the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum 2009, which was held yesterday in the University Cultural Center, NUS. I must say that it was a little boring hour wait whilst everyone got settled down, and finally our Minister Mentor came into the hall and we started the forum.

There were a total of 9 selected questions, represented mostly by NUS and SMU, with only one from NTU if I remember correctly. If you want to know what type of questions there was and how MM’s answer is, today’s papers have them nicely done up.

I guess the highlight of the day was just to see MM walk in and answer questions. I was in the first few rows, and I got to see him close up. And from his answers you knew that this man is different. There’s something about him that we all should learn about. A trait which only the successful have, because by having such traits, people become successful.

MM Lee said that when he wants to do something, he’ll put in his best and make sure the things get done. This sounds simple, but here is a man who as done it. Most of us find it easy to say, let’s just do our best. But are we sure that that is our best? Because we can find many reasons to show that we could have done better, and we didn’t. Or we give up halfway, citing difficulties in accomplishing the task. Or the best thing of all, right at the beginning, we think about how to do things the easiest way out, even when it may not accomplish the task to the right effect.

Once, the was another man who gave a speech to a room of students, and he said this: “You can plan your life up to 90% accurate”. And Adam Khoo, in a speech I have heard live, said: “3% of Yale knew what they were doing. They knew what they were going to do when they graduate, and how much they are going to earn. And subsequent researched showed that this 3% of students earned more money combined than the other 97% combined.” It’s not surprising. The successful people have always planned their actions, and they knew what they were doing. Many of us are in school not knowing what we are going to do or why we are there, a reason why many of us are unsuccessful in school work itself.

Hence yesterday’s forum made me think again. What do I want to do with my life. Instead of the forum’s theme, which is “What will Singapore be like in the next 50 years”, I was thinking, “What will my life be like in the next 50 years”. I know what I want, and it’s time to find out how to get it.

I was just having a discussion with my friends yesterday night, and I was being the usual motivated and super positive self. In fact I was brimming with enthusiasm and ambition that I wanted to infect everyone with it. I just wanted to discuss something that came up last night, and I’m not going to push my views on anyone. I’m just going to state what I just generally think.

Whenever people talk about money, we always end up with this one sentence that can be expressed in many different ways. The crux of the sentence is:

Health is more important than wealth. If you’re not healthy, then there’s no point in being rich.

Of which I wanted to scream and shout and protest.

I think health should be a given. Personally if I have such ambitious dreams, I want to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour. But that is not the point. The point I wanted to make is that we have always been so brainwashed in our heads that money is bad. You don’t believe?

Why do we call someone filthy rich? Filthy is a negative word. Why don’t we call them wonderfully rich?

Why do we call a rich man a bastard? Why do we always think that rich men are rich because they are scheming shits who con money out of loyal hardworking people?

To put it simply, we have always been negative about other people’s success. When someone gets good grades, we call them a mugger. Nerd. Only know how to study. A rich man’s son is a spoilt brat. A rich man is a bastard. Someone with low morals.

But is that true? I want to challenge that notion. Being rich is a perfectly normal thing that you and I can attain. We can become rich, but we shouldn’t set ourselves up for potential failure by giving excuses to say why it’s alright that we cannot be rich. By repeating negative things about being rich, we are subconsciously telling ourselves that, “Hey, being rich is something bad. I don’t really want to be rich anyway”.

Back to the health statement, I think that should be taken for granted. Almost everyone understands that being healthy is important so that we can enjoy wealth. It’s not really a new argument or point of view anymore. We shouldn’t say things like “I rather be healthy than rich”. Why should we do that? Why can’t we be “both healthy and rich”? Reach out to the skies for more. Ask, and it shall be given (like in Proposal JDrama).

When you really want something, the universe will serve it on a platter for you.

So I think being healthy is a given. Anyway health and wealth are not two mutually exclusive things that you can have one or the other but not both. Health and wealth can co-exist peacefully. It’s not like we get to tell God that we can choose between health and wealth. God is not that petty. He can and will give you both if you know how to ask.

Some people have this opinion: “I just want to be healthy. I don’t need to be rich”. Well that is a perfectly fine statement and opinion. In fact, there is nothing wrong in this statement. Everyone has a choice of how they want to live their lives. But can I just put a little idea into your head now? Why don’t we just aim to become rich? After all, though simple living is all right, there’s no harm having more money isn’t it? You can donate to your favourite charity, start your own foundation (like what I am planning to do). You can create scholarships and encourage more Singaporean talents. You can donate to cancer research. You can build a hospital. You can build schools in poor 3rd world country. Donate books. There are so many reasons why you should become rich. No one says you have to become rich for yourself. You should not need to feel guilty thinking about being rich.

But if you continue thinking that “I don’t need to be rich”, you’ll never be rich. Because you have programmed your mind to think that rich is something that you don’t need. Personally for me, I need to be rich. There are so many things I want to do. I want to set up my own foundation, for what I still have no idea. Maybe I shall donate to education. Maybe to medicine research. I’ll see what gives me the most satisfaction. Maybe I would encourage more local entrepreneurs. Maybe I will build homes in poorer countries. Maybe I’ll fund students on overseas CIP trips. There are so many reasons the world is telling me for me to want to become rich.

This is reaching the end of my lengthy post, and I hope I have given you some food for thought. It is all right to keep your own views about not needing to be rich. It is not wrong and never will be. But I hope you’ll just think about it, and decide for yourself whether I make sense or not. But if you think I make sense, and you resonate with me, do drop me a comment. I like to make more friends who desire to achieve the greatest success in the world.

We are all humans and humans complain. We whine about this and whine about that and we blame almost everyone but ourselves. We blame the train when we are late, but we never realize we could have just took the earlier one and there’ll always be a margin of safety. We blame the professor when we cannot understand a concept, when actually we are the ones responsible for our own learning.

Don’t you think that it gets irritating after some point in time when we continue to whine?

However, humans seem to be made to whine as a destress mechanism, so that we can unload all the stuff that’s pent up in ourselves for so long, and we won’t explode after having so much bottled up. The problem with this is that it allows us to be inefficient and get away with it by blaming others. As time goes by, we just get used to all these excuses, as I call it, that we just become unsuccessful. And we continue the vicious cycle by blaming other people.

What I see it is that the problem that we face isn’t painful enough for us to do something about it. We are just contented with sticking to the same kind of life, facing the same problem although we don’t like it. Just that the amount of dislike we have for the problem isn’t big enough to force us to change and adapt to the situation.

What I think we should do is to always reflect constantly and make sure we can do our best in all situations. Instead of blaming others and whining about our situation, we should change our situation and make life better for us. If everyone of us could be this dynamic, I think we would become a potent force. The problem is just that the majority is happy to remain as they are. Well I guess this is the same problem faced by many countries too.

I’m starting to feel that we should all adopt open mindsets. Question what the previous generations have taught us. Are they correct? Or are they mere biased? Or is it that with the generations, things change, and our mentality towards certain issues must change? For if we remain on the spot, how are we ever to progress?

Entrepreneurs challenge the norms. Ask questions. Find holes and plug them. Go via the unconventional way, the way where no one has gone, and bring change. Then, life becomes better.

I realized I changed a lot as the years went by. I read more books and gained a whole lot of new perspective. Back in the older days your elders tell you never to touch stocks. They speak of people who burnt their fingers playing on the stock markets. But this is not true. I eventually learnt that as long as you gain the knowledge to analyse stocks such that you do not speculate, and have a long term investment horizon, the risks of holding stocks decrease over the years.

Another thing is that we were brought up in an environment that we have this subconscious believe that we cannot earn our friends money. In a way when you offer to do something special, people expect you to do it for free, and if you take a little bit of commission for your effort in helping make everyone’s lives easier, they then rate you and relegate you to a lower ranking. But I ask WHY? Why must this be so. This is stifling entrepreneurship. Making it hard to develop ideas and carry them out because society rates you differently. Yet, most of the time we start by going to our friends for support.

So sometimes I keep hitting these walls that were built and deserved to be demolished, yet we feel powerless to demolish because all of our friends are like that. But once we jump over the wall, we find our other friends who have already jumped, and they have also progressed on with their lives. So take some time to question those beliefs that you have, and see if they still apply to the current generation. Talk more with people, because different ideas may come in, and may the better idealogy win.

I’ve always been wondering about this: Singapore is a secular state. Meaning there’s no one religion that’s governing us. All religions are equal, and we respect religious harmony. Yet, it is impossible to run away from religion.

What is the law? Personally I believe that the law is a set of rules that are put together because the majority of the people in a particular region, in this case Singapore, decided that the rules are fair and important. In our case, we elect people to represent us to make those laws. As such, they are highly dependent on our own value system, and on how we interpret if a particular action is wrong.

Hence it is difficult to run away from religion. Religion plays a part in many people’s lives. Religion also affect one’s moral viewpoint. Because of religion, a person may feel that action A is immoral, yet those in other religion may think otherwise.

Because religion is of such a nature, when there is a sizeable number of people of the same religion who feel the same way towards a particular issue, a law comes up, and that law is affected by religion, although Singapore is a secular state. That is why the repeal of 377A previously didn’t go successfully.

So where should we draw the line between being secular and being affected by religion? I thought about it for quite some time, and I came up with a viewpoint. It is fine if religion affects a person individually because of his own belief, and hence affecting a law. But it is not good if religion is used as a tool to amass people of the same religion together, to decide that something is wrong, and gang people up together against people who don’t believe the same way. It is not right for a normal non-religious issue to turn into a religious one. This is what had happened in AWARE. Homosexuality should not be a religious issue, yet certain pastors decided to use religion as a rallying force.

I never believed entirely in religion, especially organized religion. I find that human is flawed, and hence how can organized religion be perfect? I was wondering, if we assume that God is perfect, and hence we believe in him, how can we trust those humans who wrote about God’s words? By the nature of flawed humans, anything that we humans wrote about God is prone to errors and flaws. Hence, how can we be so sure that such words are God’s words? How can we be so sure that God decided something is wrong based on the words of humans who lived a long time ago? The best thing is, how can present humans know that their interpretation of such human words is true? Hence I find that I do not need to believe in any religion. As long as one does good, and has a clear conscience, that is enough.

Anyway the conclusion is that Singapore must remain secular, and religion must never be used as a rallying point. Who knows if the leader of the rally has misinterpreted God?

I’ve been reading books around me and looking at the businesses that happen in our daily lives. I think that plenty could be learnt by rethinking about the way businesses are done. Besides, businesses can improve through looking at the feedback given, and discovering what customers want.

Today I read a little passage in a book I borrowed from the library. It was talking about the plumbing industry, and how one company managed to distinguish itself from its competitors and even charge a higher price. The lesson to learn here is to know what customers want, and give it to them. It’s like a value add for customers.

Many times we have ordered contractor services and they turn up in a old polo tee with many holes and stains, and pants of the same condition. They come with dirty feet, walking about in your home and after that you have to clean and mop the places they stepped because there were stains. Hence, in this view, the plumbing company in the passage decided to focus on cleanliness.

The plumber arrives in a neat and clean attire, and does his work. After finishing his work, he cleans up the surrounding areas such that it is even cleaner than when he first arrived. As such, customers are happy with the service, and they are willing to pay a little more for such standards.

I’m wondering why that in Singapore, nobody has seemed to be bothered to do such a thing. It’s almost like an old industry having no new blood flowing in to give newer ideas to revolutionise the industry and give it a cleaner, professional image. One that commands confidence and trust in customers. I think that for every businesses, it is important to self reflect every year and see what can be improved. In what way can they bring better value to customers to distinguish themselves from others.

On a side note, my house is undergoing renovation beginning from today, and the contractor has already caused some unhappiness and irritation. This is because the planning for the renovation was screwed up. Since they have to do the flooring in my room, I have to move all furniture and belongings out before they work on it. Today is Tuesday, and now they come telling us that the flooring would be done on Friday. If they had planned earlier and make it more effective, we would have not needed to inconvenience ourselves for that many days. We could only bring out the furniture on Thursday instead of on Monday. That’s a 4 days inconvenience we do not need.

Hence it is important to know how customers feel, because if they are not satisfied with your service, they will never recommend it to anyone else, and customer’s word of mouth approval is very important. It is especially so when there are numerous contractor firms out there with no real differentiation.

I hope such lessons would help anyone that’s reading this.

I refer to the letter written about Great Eastern’s Insurance:

Great Eastern’s Life Assurance’s reply last Sunday, “Policy excludes certain procedures” to my letter, “Insured but unable to make claim” (May 10), did not address my concerns.

My point was that the fine print embedded in GE’s policies stumps ordinary applicants like me when we file a claim.”

Let’s face it. most of us who buy health insurance do not wish to exercise any claim if we can help it because it means we would have fallen seriously ill.

One files a claim only because it is unavoidable, such as when one needs financial help suddenly. After all, this is the reason that one buys health insurance.

Now, on the issue of the “fine print”. Unlike previously angioplasty today can clear blockages completely. To do so previously requied a heart bypass operation.

So any rational heart patient will choose angioplasty instead of a bypass today, if he has a choice; which is why GE’s exclusion of an angioplasty and inclusion of the bypass is puzzling. I am also surprised by GE’s reply that “critical illness plans have been improved and upgraded and generally, the newer policy covers angioplasty”.

Mr Reeve Ong, the head of GE’s claims department who signed off on the reply, suggested that I was perhaps to blame for I would have been successful if I had signed up for its newer critical care policy which “pays as soon as it is proven that two or more coronary arteries have narrowed”.

His contention is baffling. If the newer policy covered angioplasty and mine did not, why wasn’t my policy upgraded automatically to include angioplasty?

The least GE could have done was to inform me, a loyal customer of 15 years, of its availability.

Furthermore, isn’t it a fact that arteries narrow as we grow older? Why should it matter whether a policy holder opts for an angioplasty or a bypass, as long as it does the job?

Having been involved in a little Insurance training in the past holiday, I can raise a few points to clarify about this issue. It is important that everyone knows of such issues, so that they have a better understanding when purchasing insurance.

1. Insurance amongst different companies will not have much difference
The first point, as stated in bold above, is that there is not much difference in terms of insurance coverage and pricing amongst different insurers. Naturally there will be slight differences. Some may be cheaper and some may be slightly more expensive. Some may cover more things, some cover less. However it is all due to competition. After some time, to keep up with competition, the insurers will try to cover the same things so as not to lose out.

2. Buy insurance from agents that you trust
I think trust is an important concept. Buy insurance only from agents you trust to do the job well. As my mentor frequently says, when you are standing at the counter in the hospital, which agent do you think you want to call to settle your bills for you? You have to have a responsible agent who will do everything nicely for you, and even update you on newer policies.

3. Your insurance agent is the one responsible for informing you on newer policies
After a period of competition, insurance policies evolve to include more things. To know what the differences are, you have to read the fine print. Your agent should be the one to call you and fix an appointment to let you know the changes, and whether you want to change or not, is up to the insured. The reason why insurers do not upgrade your policies automatically is because the prices of the policies would have gone up, and we all know we hate it when companies upgrade our policies automatically and charge us higher prices.

4. Change your own perception of the insurance sector
I think people should change the perception of the insurance sector. There are black sheeps and professionals in this industry. Insurance has become a taboo topic amongst the older generation, and perhaps the younger generation too, if they were swayed by their older relatives.

I also think that we should correct our attitude when our insurance agent calls to fix an appointment. How many people would gladly agree to a new appointment? Most people end up thinking that the insurance agent is just out to earn your money, and so reject the appointment. I was wondering if that is the case for this letter’s author. If that is the case, we can hardly blame the agent for not informing him on recent changes, because some people are just that stubborn.

While we are on this topic, I thought I should address a similar topic. Is it wrong for friends to earn your money? I have realized that some people are very disgusted with the thought that your friend is out to earn your money. Why is that wrong? As long as the friend has given goods or services that you desire, what is wrong with rewarding them with money? Why is it that if you are a true friend, you should not earn a friend’s money?

Back to the insurance issue, I think the person you should trust most to fix your problems for you is your family or your friends. So you’ll most likely end up buying from them rather than to somebody who just cold-called you. So to me, it is perfectly fine to earn money from friends and family.

The most important thing to learn is that insurance policies do change every few years, and so it is important to have a yearly meeting with your insurance agent to find out more. The decision is really up to you, whether you want to upgrade or not. I believe good insurance agents are sincere, and even if you do not end up buying from them, they are sure to continue meeting with you to introduce you to other policies. Of course, if you have the purchasing power, you should consider upgrading. As long as it’s within your means. Medical technology and practices evolve over the years, hence policies will change to include such treatment.

Who knows, maybe one day you need the newer technology to cure your illness? I think it is better to be prepared, than to be caught unaware like the gentlemen above.