It’s barely a week to go before we welcome the year of the snake.
My mood is all ready for CNY and then I got a call on my mobile. It was from one of my client, Mdm. XYZ. She is a take-over client from a colleague who left my company. I first met her sometimes in 2007/2008 to introduce myself her new servicing agent. There was not much of new business from her so technically speaking, I doing this servicing FOC. I did her insurance review and suggest to her to make some enhancement to her coverage. One of them was the enhancement of medical plan from her CPF Medishield to an “As-Charged” private medical insurance. However, she feels that CPF Medishield is good enought for her and she is well-covered by her employee benefit. Another enhancement that I strongly encouraged her to look into was the “Eldershield Supplement” which was an enhancement to the Basic Eldershield plan.
Eldershield is a long-term care insurance plan that will provide a payout in the event that she is unable to perform any 3 out of 6 of the Activities of Daily Livings (ADLs) which includes:
- Feeding
- Clothing
- Washing
- Toileting
- Mobility
- Transferring
In the event that she is unable to perform any 3 out of 6 ADLs, this Eldershield supplement will increase her Eldershield payout from $400/mth x 72 mths to as much as $1,000/mth x Lifetime payout. Likewise, she did not want to go ahead with this as she felt it’s impossible for her to get to that physical state. In fact, she had wanted to cancel the basic eldershield and I took sometime to talk her out of that idea. She decided to keep it after I told her ” This plan is from CPF & I make no money out of it. There is no incentive for me to repeatly asking you to keep this plan other than this plan is really important.”
Anyway, back to the phone call. Her purpose of calling me was to seek an advice on one of her policies taken with my ex-colleague. It was a plan paid with CPF ordinary account. She asked me what are the options she have now as she cannot afford to pay the premium for that CPF Plan. I told her that she have a few options but I hope she can tell me more about her current situation before advising her on the most appropriate option. She said she lost her job and have not been working as she had amputated both her legs. I was stunned for a moment and after finding out more info, I told her I believe her policy would cover her for Total & Permanent Disability(TPD) and I will help her with the claim. Most importantly, I asked her,”Did you still keep the Eldershield plan that I asked you to keep?” Her answer was….yes. I told her great! I will proceed to get all the forms ready and meet her ASAP to make claims for all these policies. The TPD payout is estimate to be twice her annual income & with that monthly payout from Eldershield, it should be sufficient to keep her finances in shape for a while. I will also help her to apply for early CPF withdrawal under disability as well as her claim for DPS.
Do I feel good helping her with all these? The answer is a NO! No because I regretted not pushing her to take up both my proposals to enhance her medical plan and Eldershield. Had I pushed a bit more, try harder and acted more like a pest that had clinged to her till she changed her mind, her benefits will be much much much better than her payout now! As I put down the phone, something that I heard from a fellow practitioner came into my mind. He said,” There are may professionals, other than us, who will take money from our clients in their lifetime. For e.g. the doctors, lawyers, etc etc. But we are the only professionals that will not just take money from our clients but also return them the money to them in time they need it most & usually the money is multipled!”
With that, may I suggest to you not to think your insurance agents are too pushy…For I wished I had, things will be better for her. And to my fellow financial practitioners, you are not just doing a sales job!
My IFA@Sg 