Tony Deng's blog

It is coming to the end of 2022. Many clients and friends asked me what can be done by 31 December for 2022 income tax relief. Here I summarized the information for topping up 3 accounts to achieve tax relief.

From April 2022, insurance companies offering Integrated Shield Plans started to introduce Extended Panel to policyholders. What is Extended Panel? Why was it introduced? After the introduction of Extended Panel, what will the impact be for policyholders? This article talks about it.

It comes to the income tax filing season again. Everyone should have received notification from IRAS to complete the income tax filing on IRAS website from 1 March to 18 April. There are still many people not familiar with the declaration on tax relief items. Here we have an introduction on this topic. Since this article is popular, I update it every year to make sure the information is updated and accurate.

You may have heard about Annuity plans or Fixed Annuity plans. But what is a Variable Annuity plan? What does it differ from Fixed Annuity plans? What type of investors is suitable for Variable Annuity plans? I have an introduction for you in this article.

The world has been more and more inclusive towards LGBT in the recent years, but life is still not easy for LGBT people, with regards to both self-identification and acceptance by the society. We can’t change people’s views quickly, but we can do something within our control to lead a better life. One thing that we can do is to maintain a healthy financial status, which will lay a solid foundation before we build a close relationship or seek acceptance from our family. Let me share with you some tips in Singapore context.

In recent years, insurers in Singapore introduced several approaches to manage the claim expenses on Integrated Shield Plans. One of them is pre-authorisation. Pre-authorisation means that before the actual hospitalisation or surgery bill is incurred in a private hospital, the insurer communicates with the attending doctor to understand the estimated expenses and assess the medical history of the patient. Once the pre-authorisation is approved, the insurer will issue a Letter of Guarantee to cover the upcoming bill. On one hand, pre-authorisation enhances the ability of the insurer to manage the claim expenses. On the other hand, it also makes it clear for the policy holder how much the insurer will pay and how much is the co-payment before the actual bill is incurred. It is a win-win approach for both sides. In practice, how to apply pre-authorisation? Let me share with you in this article.

Since the drop of illustrated investment rate of return for participating policies, more and more people are looking at term insurance, especially those who believe the concept of “Buy term and invest the rest”. In this article, I will share with you how to select a term insurance that is suitable for yourself.

Recently Life Insurance Association (LIA) Singapore announced that from 1 Jul 2021, the Illustrated Investment Rate of Return for Participating Policies will be revised downwards. The Upper Illustration Rate will be revised from the current 4.75% to 4.25%, and the Lower Illustration Rate will be revised from the current 3.25% to 3.00%. Many clients and friends asked me what the impact of this revision will be. I have my answer in this article.

In recent years, ESG factors have been frequently discussed in the investment industry. Currently when climate change is being focused by the world, and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic reflects a variety of social issues, ESG investment becomes an even more popular topic among investors. This article is to provide a brief introduction on ESG investment.

In Singapore, maternity insurance is a niche field among insurance products. My clients and friends usually have little idea about it. They only come to consult me when the fact of pregnancy is on the table. In this article, I will have an introduction on maternity insurance in Singapore. If you are looking for relevant information, you will quickly grasp the key points here.

It comes to the income tax filing season again. Everyone should have received an SMS from IRAS to complete the income tax filing on IRAS website from 1 March to 18 April. There are still many people not familiar with the declaration on tax relief items. Here we have an introduction on this topic. Since this article is popular, I update it every year to make sure the information is updated and accurate.

In the coming two months, there will be two major changes on Integrated Shield Plans in Singapore. Many clients and friends came to ask me relevant questions. To be more efficient for everyone, I listed down the key points about this topic in this article.

From 1 Jan 2021, there are a few major changes on the two mandatory insurance plans (foreign worker medical insurance and work injury compensation insurance) for employers. Many employers consulted me on these changes recently. So I consolidated my answers in this article.

From 1 Oct 2020, Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents who were born between 1980 and 1990 are automatically covered under CareShield Life. I had an introduction on the launch of CareShield Life in my previous article here. Now the government allows people who are covered under CareShield Life to utilize up to $600 from their CPF Medisave per year to purchase a CareShield Life Supplement, to enhance the benefit of CareShield Life. Recently many clients and friends asked me how to select a proper CareShield Life Supplement. Due to the popularity, I answer the question in this article.

The year end is approaching. Many clients and friends ask me again what a person can do to reduce the individual income tax in this calendar year. Here I summarised some of the points from my previous articles to provide a simple and clear answer.

MediShield Life is a compulsory hospitalisation and surgery insurance scheme for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents. It provides lifetime coverage and is managed by the government. As the healthcare environment in Singapore changes, the MediShield Life Council is responsible to adjust the scheme accordingly. Recently on 29 Sep 2020, the MediShield Life Council announced a public consultation to seek views from the public on the preliminary recommendations and suggestions for enhancements to MediShield Life. This article will explain how these potential adjustments will impact us.

As a country open and connecting to the world, the tax policy in Singapore is relatively more friendly than many other countries, so it can attract more international investment and professionals. But how friendly it is? I will elaborate starting from the individual income tax policy in Singapore.

In my previous article Calculate Your Regular Expenses - The First Step of Financial Planning, I illustrated how to calculate the annual expenses for a person after retirement. That number is calculated based on the current price of goods. To calculate the annual expenses for a person after retirement based on the price of goods at the retirement age, we need to use the formula below to include the effect of inflation:  

Endowment plan is a common low-risk investment vehicle. Usually it is used for wealth accumulation and coping with inflation. By purchasing an endowment plan, you let the internal fund managers in an insurance company help you manage your money in a relatively low-risk manner. In many cases, it also protects your principal. In Singapore, there are lots of numbers in the Policy Illustration and Product Summary of an endowment plan. This article will explain to you what the key numbers inside these documents are, so you can quickly obtain the information relevant to investment return of an endowment plan.

Financial planning is a type of personalized service. The data input by a client during the planning is usually highly relevant to the client’s daily living. The accuracy of the input will directly impact the validity of the planning. Personal regular expenses is one kind of such data. It is so important that it affects the calculation of various of essential indicators. This article uses a simple case study to illustrate how to calculate regular expenses for a person.

In recently years, hospitalisation insurance is the first insurance to apply for many people in Singapore. Those who have applied should know that the health declaration for hospitalisation insurance is more detailed than that for life and critical illness insurance, and the underwriting process is also stricter. During the underwriting for hospitalisation insurance, some minor pre-existing medical conditions may be excluded, while some major ones may lead to application being declined. Once there is an exclusion or even being declined, what are the alternatives for the person? Here are four alternatives according to my experience.

People purchase life insurance in order to cover the liability after death, so the distribution of death benefit is an essential part of life insurance. If the policy holder does not specify the distribution of death benefit, it will be distributed according to the Intestate Succession Act in Singapore. The process is long and expensive, and it is easy to cause dispute among beneficiaries. To avoid these problems, the policy holder should distribute the death benefit according to his / her wish. Such distribution may go through an insurance nomination or a will. But which distribution method is better? Here there is an introduction.

It comes to the income tax filing season again. Everyone should have received the letter from IRAS to complete the income tax filing on IRAS website from 1 March to 18 April. These years IRAS website has been more user-friendly. But there are still many people not familiar with the declaration on tax relief items. Here we have an introduction on this topic.

Currently we are facing the uncertainty caused by COVID-19. My clients have been asking me insurance related questions under this special situation. Here is a sharing on the answers to frequently asked questions.

When I meet many clients for the first time, they shared with me that there was a saying “a person living in Singapore shall at first purchase hospitalisation insurance and personal accident insurance”. Hospitalisation insurance is relatively easy to understand. But when talking about personal accident insurance, I found that many people had certain misunderstanding. Here are answers to some common questions about personal accident insurance.

It is coming to the year end and many people are topping up their SRS accounts to reduce income tax. Regarding the key points about SRS, I had an introduction in this video. After topping up their SRS accounts, my clients and friends usually ask me what they can invest to and what is suitable for them. This article is to answer these questions in a layman way.

In terms of product structure, there are three common types of life insurance. They are term life insurance, whole life insurance and investment-linked insurance. During daily communication, I realized that people are not very clear about the differences among these three types of products. This article is to illustrate these differences, so you may have a better thought about which product structure is more suitable for you.

Recently due to information efficiency and the improved awareness among the public, estate planning has gradually becoming an integrated part in personal financial planning. As a result, Tony studied the Intestate Succession Act and will writing related knowledge in Singapore context, converted them into contents which are easy to understand, and shared with his clients and friends in a seminar on the afternoon of 3 Aug 2019.

Recently a friend who just became a mother asked me what are the tax relief benefits for working mothers in Singapore. I found it interesting, so I share my study here. For a general view on individual tax relief items, I had an introduction in article Guidelines on Tax Relief Items in Tax Filing. Other than tax relief items which are common for every tax resident (such as Qualifying Child Relief and Parent Relief), there are three special tax relief items for working mothers.

It is commonly understood by residents in Singapore that Integrated Shield Plan is an essential hospitalisation insurance for Singapore Citizens and Singapore Permanent Residents. It covers most hospitalisation expenses for the insured in Singapore. However, when hospitalisation really happens, what need to be taken note in the actual practice? Here are answers to the frequently asked questions by my clients.

If you have a little knowledge about insurance, you may know that when offering the same risk coverage, there are two categories of insurance products in the market. One is without cash value. The other is with cash value. For the former category, there is no cash in the account when the insurance policy is surrendered. For the latter category, there is certain cash value in the account when the insurance policy is surrendered. The policy holder needs to pay more premium every year for the latter category. The insurance company uses the extra premium to do some low to medium risk investment. So the policy holder can receive cash value when the policy is surrendered. Then you may ask, what is the annual return of this kind of investment? This figure is generally not stated in the policy illustration of the insurance product. However, we can use Excel spreadsheet to calculate this return rate in a simple way. Let’s see the example below.

In recent years, the CPF retirement plan in Singapore had been changed to CPF LIFE. Under CPF LIFE, the retirement income payout is for lifetime. Since the CPF account balance is always transparent to the account holders, we can calculate how long a person should live to fully enjoy the real benefit of CPF LIFE.

When we apply health status related insurance (e.g. life insurance, critical illness insurance and hospitalisation insurance), we have to answer the medical questionnaire from the insurance company. The answers to the medical questionnaire must reflect the fact of the life assured, in order to avoid dispute during a claim. Many people ask me, if there is a health condition declared in the medical questionnaire, what may be the outcome of the insurance offer? This article provides an answer.

It comes to the income tax filing season again. Everyone should have received the letter from IRAS to complete the income tax filing on IRAS website from 1 March to 18 April. These years IRAS website has been more user-friendly. But there are still many people not familiar with the declaration on tax relief items. Here we have an introduction on this topic.

In last article, I had an introduction of the return mechanism of Singapore Savings Bonds. Singapore Savings Bonds is a low risk (almost risk free) investment vehicle. So what are the common low risk investment vehicles in Singapore? What are the differences among these investment vehicles? We will answer these questions in this article.

Singapore Savings Bonds is a low risk (almost risk-free) investment vehicle provided by the Singapore Government. Recently my clients and friends told me that the return structure of Singapore Savings Bonds is not easy to understand. So I have an introduction in this article.

In one of my past articles, I talked about minimum employee insurance requirements for employers in Singapore. In a recent case, my client (who is an employer) asked me, “Do I have any other medical liabilities for my employees if I have purchased the mandatory medical insurance set by Ministry of Manpower (MOM)?” For local employees (Singaporean and Singapore PR), and employees holding Employment Pass, the main medical liability for employer is to grant paid medical leave to the employees. It is relatively simple and easy to understand. In this article, we talk about a more complicated category: employer’s medical liability for employees holding Work Permit or S Pass.

Hospitalisation insurance is very common in Singapore. But normal hospitalisation insurance does not cover outpatient expenses. My clients ask me frequently, what insurance should I buy to cover outpatient costs? The answer to this question is not so straight-forward as hospitalisation insurance. Let me answer from three perspectives.

Singaporeans and PRs are compulsory to contribute to CPF. For employees, it is mandatory to contribute to CPF together with the employer every month. For self-employed persons, it is mandatory to contribute to CPF Medisave account every year, according to the person’s net trade income in the year. Asides from these mandatory contributions, people can voluntarily contribute to their own CPF accounts, with the purpose such as to relief income tax. There are three ways to top up to your CPF accounts. Here is a summary of the top-up limit and tax relief limit of these three methods. Except specific indications, all the information below is updated as of 31 Dec 2018.

In the recent years, Common Reporting Standard (CRS) has been progressively implemented. The differences on tax system between Singapore and China became the hot topic among Mainland Chinese people who are working in Singapore. Meanwhile, on 31 Aug 2018, China Congress approved the Seventh Amendment of People’s Republic of China Individual Income Tax Law. The amendment better suits the current development stage of China. It has been widely discussed in the society. After a seminar with practitioners in the financial services industry in September 2018, Tony conducted another seminar on the difference on financial planning related tax polies between Singapore and China for his clients and friends on the afternoon of 8 Dec 2018. A networking session was organised following the seminar.

After owning the first home, many people will buy home related insurance, some are bundled by the financing bank and some are set compulsory by the government. Frequently I explain to my clients and friends the different categories and benefits for home related insurance. Here is a summary on the key points.

Recently a friend who just started her career as a financial planner asked me a question. She is weak on responding to clients during a business presentation, and she is good at analysis and planning. Currently as a rookie in the industry, she has limited time to learn different things. Is it better for her to spend more time to fix her weakness, or just to focus on growing her strength?

Recently I helped a few clients plan their funding for health insurance after retirement. I customised the plan according to the situation of each client. To benefit more people, here I am going to share how to calculate such expenses, and the estimation that we can use in planning.

In September this year, I received an invitation from AXA to give a speech on AXA Career Talk in October to share my experience on career development. I have attended various career talks and listened to the sharing from other practitioners in the financial services industry. After taking up this responsibility, I have been thinking how to share my true and unique experience, and resonate with the audience at the same time.

Recently one of my teammates felt confused and talked to me. He said he cared much about the achievement in his work. In a positive way, it pushed him to put in more effort. But when there was a setback in his work result, the more he cared about the achievement, the tougher he felt it to carry on. He asked me how to solve this dilemma.

Recently some of my clients and friends are confused on the fund allocation for mortgage loan and instalment. They came to me for discussion. Then I found that these questions are interesting and decided to share them with everyone here. To make it simple, the discussion is on self-occupied properties only.

Due to positive feedback from the sharing with industry practitioners one month ago, I conducted another seminar to share my research on the difference between Singapore CPF and China Social Insurance with clients and friends. The guests showed strong interests in this topic. In the relaxed seminar atmosphere, I had good interaction with the audience. This is the second topic of my “Fresh Eyes on Finance” seminar series. If you are interested in certain topics, do feel free to let me know. I will share the knowledge or information with everyone via blog, video or seminar, whichever is suitable.

In the financial services industry, successful professionals are happy to share their knowledge and learn from one another. On 9 May 2018, I held a seminar sharing my research on the difference between Singapore CPF and China Social Insurance with industry practitioners. Peers from Finexis and Financial Alliance attended the seminar and had a fruitful discussion with me during the Q&A session. Seminar on the same topic will be organised for clients in the near future.

It is always my mission to provide a platform for my clients and friends to network and create synergy. We celebrate the New Year together, know more about each other, and share our best wishes for 2018. May all of our wishes come true!