Our Bad Experience with Manulife ReadyMummy

Insurance is all about transferring risk to another party. Our recent experience tells us again that it is simply better to self insure...

In our previous posts - 1 Month as a Parent and Mount Alvernia Delivery & Phototherapy Charges, we mentioned that our baby had severe jaundice (290+ level) and had to be admitted for phototherapy 6 days after she was born. 

Long story short, we tried to claim the phototherapy treatment from the ReadyMummy policy but was rejected. To be honest, the amount that can be claimed was supposedly just $100 which is a relatively small amount considering the phototherapy treatment cost $967.92 while the ReadyMummy premium cost $798.00. What really pisses me off was the lack of transparency in the way Manulife promotes/markets ReadyMummy and the lack of product knowledge from this agent.

I checked with him on the day our baby got admitted for phototherapy. Sounds like an easy/straightforward claim right? 

I opted for express checkout (sounds like a hotel right. lol) so it took some time before I received the hospital bills. When it finally arrived, I sent it to him and all of a sudden, he is asking for a doctor's memo. He should have mentioned it earlier but regardless, I got the doctor's memo and sent it to him.

One fine day, I received the rejected claim letter. The agent is so cui (lousy) that he made no effort in communicating the result of the claim to me. I had to find out from the slow mail while he would have received an email. The reason for rejecting it was ridiculous! Apparently, it was not severe enough because Baby Ong was admitted for less than 3 days. Why would the severity be determined by the number of days admitted? Regardless, I went to their website, brochure and even the documents (e.g. product summary) my agent sent me previously but I did not find the minimum 3 days being stated/mentioned anywhere.

He responded that he will appeal only after I confronted him. Shouldn't the approach be him informing me that the claim has been rejected and proceeding to appeal for me?

Anyway, the appeal failed and this was the response I got. It was stated in the policy document which we had to download separately in another email from Manulife. Even the agent said that Manulife was being misleading by not indicating this clause in the product summary.

When we buy insurance, we do not want to find out how good the policy is or to make any claim. To be fair, the Manulife ReadyMummy plan has many other coverages too (on paper and maybe possibly other hidden T&Cs) and it is not right for us to say that it is a bad policy simply based on the above but it was really a bad experience we had to go through. Will we buy this policy if we were to have a second child or any Manulife policy? Definitely not. Is it fair to expect the agent to be well versed in the product he/she is selling? I certainly think so.

End of the day, is it agent cui or policy cui? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
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Who has the lowest fees? StashAway vs Syfe vs Endowus

I first did a comparison 3.5 years back - Who has the lowest fees? StashAway vs Smartly vs AutoWealth when robo-advisors were new to the Singapore market. Time flies and one of them is already "dead". lol.

Anyway, I felt it was about time to update the spreadsheet with some of the new robo/competitors. The new additions are Syfe and Endowus.

1. StashAway has tiered fees - https://www.stashaway.sg/pricing.

2. Syfe has a very straightforward fee structure but unclear if Platinum clients enjoy a lower management fee as compared to Gold clients - https://www.syfe.com/pricing.

3. Endowus has a tiered, not stacked fees structure for the cash investment and a flat fee pricing for CPF and SRS - https://endowus.com/pricing.

At one glance, which one do you think has the lowest fees?

The correct answer is still "It depends". lol. However, it is pretty obvious that if your investment is large (more than $1,500,000), StashAway is clearly the winner in terms of the annual fee charged for the respective portfolio size.

These are the raw data/numbers used to plot the graph above. For any investment smaller than ~$900k, Syfe would be the cheapest option. Anything more, StashAway becomes the cheapest option. Interestingly, Endowus Cash would be the cheapest for a very brief period when it crosses the next tier which is at $200,001 and $1,000,001.

Based on the above, we can also see why StashAway was able to reach 1 billion AUM so quickly. They are simply the cheapest by a huge margin when the portfolio/investment amount is large. All they need is (multiple) 1 person with 1 million to invest instead of 100 people with $10,000 each competing with Syfe/other robos because there are cheaper alternatives.

These are the raw data/numbers for CPF/SRS investment. Similarly, any investment smaller than ~$900k, Endowus CPF/SRS would be the cheapest option (flat fee of 0.4% which is similar to Syfe's Gold tier) while StashAway becomes the cheapest option beyond $900k.

For CPF investment, Endowus is your only option. For SRS, it really depends. Firstly, how long is your investment horizon and do you foresee your investment growing beyond $900k? Given that the maximum SRS contribution/investment is $15.3k per year (capped), your only variable is how long you can invest vs the return to achieve your goal. Let's say you are starting your SRS at mid/late 40s, you would need a much higher return (e.g. 14%) as compared to someone who started their SRS investment at late 20s (e.g. 3%) to grow the portfolio beyond $900k. Simulate with a finance calculator and decide for yourself! Secondly, are you already investing your cash through StashAway? If you are, you might want to just continue using StashAway to reap the economies of scale (easier to grow beyond $900k) since StashAway does not differentiate between cash/SRS when computing the fees.

Anyway, you can refer to this google spreadsheet for the data and graph.

Do stay tuned to our next article on the Effects of Fees on Returns for StashAway, Syfe, and Endowus which will be pretty similar to what we blogged about previously too - Effects of Fees on Returns - StashAway vs Smartly vs AutoWealth.

Referral

If you are interested in StashAway, do use our referral link. You get $10,000 free management fees for 6 months and we will get $16!

If you are interested in Endowus, do use our referral link for our readers! You will get S$10,000 managed free for 6 months ($20 equivalent) and we will get $20 too! $28 if you fulfill the above conditions.

If you are interested in Syfe, do use our new referral code (KPOCZM). You will have your first $30,000 managed free for 6 months and we will be receiving a $10 cash incentive for our portfolio if you invest $500 or more on your first deposit.

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Endowus - January 2021

Happy 牛 Year Everyone! Wishing all the readers lots of wealth, happiness and stay healthy! Endowus is running a CNY promotion and it is for the last 2 days (until 14 February). I will recommend using this opportunity to invest through Endowus if you have been sitting on the fence because the minimum sum is too high (it has been reduced significantly, more information below).

Risk Profile

Goal type: General wealth accumulation
Risk tolerance: Maximise returns (loss tolerance -60%)

Monthly investment using SRS: $638

I have modified my monthly investment in order to max out my SRS contribution for the year.

Account Summary

Capital: $11,788.00
Current: $13,080.35 (11.00%)

There are quite a few differences as compared to StashAway. Firstly, all the cash has been invested while StashAway keeps 1% of the portfolio in cash. Secondly, the fees are not deducted on a monthly basis. The Access Fee charged by Endowus will be deducted at the end of each quarter as stated in their FAQ.

As of 12 February 2021, the portfolio value is $13,813.06 (+17.22%).

Asset Allocation

This shows that the number of shares for each fund that I owned:
- Dimensional Global Core Equity Fund (187.0010)
- Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund (2,208.0500)
- Dimensional Emerging Markets Large Cap Core Equity Fund (70.2910)
- Dimensional Pacific Basin Small Companies Fund (68.4890)

It will be great if they actually showed my average price vs the current market price.

Transactions

That's all! Overall, I think the statement is pretty straightforward and easy to read. On a side note, StocksCafe does not has the ability to track funds, hence unable to do any form of comparison/benchmark.

Speaking of which, Endowus has finally launched a mobile app:

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/endowus-invest-cpf-srs-cash/id1531067679

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.endowus.mobileapp

Oh. Endowus is running a pretty attractive CNY promotion -  lowering of the minimum investment amount to just $888! Huat ah! 

To kickoff the Chinese New Year and to help people invest better from the start of the year, we will be running the following initiatives:
1. For the entire February, we are lowering our minimum investment amount from $10,000 to $888
2. From 1 - 14 February, we have a sign-up bonus for new clients from $20 to $28

To be eligible for the $28 sign-up bonus, the prospective clients have to:
1. Be a new Endowus client
2. Create an account between 1 to 14 February (leave an email and password on our website) using a referral or affiliate link
3. Fund their account with $888 before 28 February

If you are interested in Endowus, do use our referral link for our readers! You will get S$10,000 managed free for 6 months ($20 equivalent) and we will get $20 too! $28 if you fulfill the above conditions.

You might be interested in the previous monthly update too:

- Endowus CPF/SRS Review

- Endowus - December 2020 - $12,466.20

- Endowus - January 2021 - $13,080.35

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Syfe - January 2021

I recently discovered another thing about the Equity100 portfolio that is annoying me. Look at the below screenshot taken on some random day.

Compare it with another screenshot taken on another random day. Look at the fees on and before Dec 2020.

Unlike StashAway, Syfe does not keep any SGD. Everything is converted to USD and the fees deducted are in USD too. The discrepancy you see above is due to FX fluctuation which I understand but their UI definitely has a lot of room for improvement. Although everything is in USD, the display currency is in SGD without an option to toggle it to USD. Having said that, this shouldn't affect a typical user but it annoys me when I am updating the transactions and fees in StocksCafe. The OCD in me is already going crazy over the inaccuracy of their display (rounding to 2 decimal places) and now this -.-"

In addition, while I was blogging about StashAway - January 2021, I noticed something interesting. It seems that our portfolio has hit the next tier and now every dollar invested into StashAway is at a fee of 0.6% which is cheaper/lower than Syfe Blue tier (0.65%). Together with the stats I am seeing in StocksCafe (Equity100 portfolio taking on more risk with lower return), I will be making some changes to our monthly investment next month. The plan is I will transfer everything in Equity100 to REIT+ 100% portfolio and the $500 monthly investment for Equity100 will go to StashAway instead.

Our Syfe Portfolio
Composition: 100% REITs
Dividend: Reinvest
Monthly Investment: $1,000

Composition: 100% Equities
Dividend: Reinvest
Monthly Investment: $500

Account Statement (Lifetime)

Our current tier is Blue (<$20,000). This is determined by the size of the portfolio (currently $14,748.08) which in turn determines the fees to be charged. The statement lifetime return is $2,048.08 which includes a $1,220 referral bonus. The actual lifetime return would be $788.08. Thanks to our readers for using our code!

Account Statement (January 2021)

The return for the month is $118.53 which includes a $0 referral bonus. 

As of 10 February 2021, this is our portfolio performance:

Capital: $9,000.00
Current: $10,381.09 (21.76% - return is skewed due to referrals)

Capital: $3,700.00
Current: $4,535.69 (49.82% - return is skewed due to referrals)

Transaction Breakdown

There are too many so I will just share a snippet. Anyway, if you want to extract the transaction information from Syfe, do take a look at this article - Syfe Transactions Parser. Anyway, the parser will not work for the Equity100 and Global ARI portfolio when there are small transactions (<0.01). You can refer to this for more information - Syfe - July 2020. The parser will work if Syfe is willing to change its UI and display more decimal places...

REIT+ 100%

Equity100

After parsing them into a csv file, I pivoted the data to get the following view.

Management Fee

The management fee can be obtained by $13,863.74 x 0.65% / 365 * 31 ~ $7.63.

StocksCafe
In my opinion, the return captured by StocksCafe will be a more accurate representation of our portfolio return as the referral bonuses are treated as capital. Having said that, I can also understand why Syfe treats them as a return instead of a deposit too. Just a different perspective. 

REIT+ 100%

Anyway, looking at the time-weighted return (18.94%), we can see that Syfe REIT+ 100% is outperforming STI ETF (including fees) but underperforming when compared against SPY or IWDA. In addition, if we were to look at the projected dividends till the end of the year based on the existing investment, we can expect $361.46 of dividends or $30.12 per month. Since the dividends >> fees, this is a pretty sustainable portfolio assuming if there's no capital loss.

Equity100

Interestingly, this is one of the rare times one would see STI outperforming all the other benchmarks. Unfortunately, the time-weighted return is just (14.17%) losing to all the indexes. In addition, if we were to look at the volatility and max drawdown, the Equity100 is riskier but not performing better than STI. A huge contrast when we compare it against StashAway's portfolio which diversifies across different assets. Having said that, we have only invested in Equity100 for a very short period of time (since Aug 2020). I will continue to monitor and decide if we should continue with this.

New Syfe customers will have their first $30,000 managed free for 6 months when they use our new referral code (KPOCZM). We will be receiving a $10 cash incentive for our portfolio if you invest $500 or more on your first deposit.

If you are interested in the smart portfolio tracker (StocksCafe) which I am using as shown above, sign up using my link for a longer trial period :) Refer to our Referrals page for more information.

You might be interested in previous months update too:
- Syfe REIT+ (100%) Review

- Syfe - December 2020 - $13,129.55

- Syfe - January 2021 - $14,748.08

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

StashAway - January 2021

StashAway recently announced that they have achieved a new and very significant milestone - US$1 Billion AUM (Assets Under Management). What's more impressive is that they achieved it at a much faster pace than the world’s largest digital wealth managers, Betterment and Wealthfront. Read this article for more information - StashAway Outpaces Rivals. 

In my opinion, this gives us (the investors) a lot more confidence that they are going to "survive" longer. When all these robo-advisors first launched, one of the biggest concerns everyone had was what will happen to our money if they close down and Smartly had already shown it to us. Some of you may be wondering if StashAway is profitable yet? Honestly, impossible to tell unless you are one of the insiders/investors. We do not know how much cash management (no fees) contributed to that 1 billion and I have seen comments like "they making 8 million a year!" which is definitely not true because of tier pricing. Anyway, no point speculating too much and let's just look forward to their next milestone/feature!

Investment for this month:
KPO and CZM Cash - StashAway Risk Index 22% - $1,000
KPO SRS - StashAway Risk Index 36% - $638
CZM SRS - StashAway Risk Index 14% - $250

1. PORTFOLIO SUMMARY (as of the last day of the month)

KPO

CZM

Based on the statement (31 January 2021), our total investment is ‭$59,991.38! KPO gains $1,345.30 and CZM gains $36.82 for the month.

As of 5 February 2021, these are our portfolio performance:

KPO and CZM Cash - StashAway Risk Index 22%: $‭40,596.84 (43.98% - Capital: $31,500)

KPO SRS - StashAway Risk Index 36%: $14,983.13 (50.94% - Capital: $11,788)

CZM SRS - StashAway Risk Index 14%: $6,432.05 (28.46% - Capital: $5,750)

2. PORTFOLIO DETAILS 
Note that these are reported in USD.

KPO and CZM Cash - StashAway Risk Index 22%

KPO SRS - StashAway Risk Index 36%

CZM SRS - StashAway Risk Index 14%

3. FEE CALCULATIONS

The fee stated is based on the monthly-average assets SGD ($25,000.00 x 0.8% + $25,000.00 x 0.7% + $2,574.36 x 0.6%) / 365 days * 31 days = $33.16.

The fee stated is based on the monthly-average assets SGD $6,130.11 x 0.8% / 365 days * 31 days = $4.17. 

StocksCafe

StashAway Risk Index 22%

Evan (founder of StocksCafe) made an improvement where one can now benchmark their portfolio against multiple indexes/ETFs. Looking at the time-weighted return (5.71%) for the year 2021, we can see that StashAway Risk Index 22% is outperforming all of our benchmarks.

If we compare across the years, StashAway's portfolio is winning by a huge margin (45.24%) except losing to SPY (57.85%) and IWDA (48.18%). In addition, it has the lowest volatility and max drawdown. This is what StashAway meant by reducing risk and maximizing the return. 

The annualized return/XIRR of the portfolio is very impressive too at 15.30%. Using the Rule of 72, it means that the StashAway portfolio will double our money in 72 / 15.30 ~ 4.7 years. In comparison, the same money if left in the bank account at 2% interest rate will take 72 / 2 ~ 36 years to double.

StashAway Risk Index 36%

As for StashAway Risk Index 36%, the portfolio currently has a higher time-weighted return (52.36%) when compared against all the indexes (STI, SPY and IWDA) but it is also clear that it is more risky in the sense that both its volatility/max drawdown are much higher when you compare against the benchmark and StashAway Risk Index 22% portfolio. The XIRR is 35.54% but it looks pretty skewed by 2021. Using the same rule, our money will double in 72 / 35.54 ~ 2.03 years.

Which is the best? Only time will tell :)

Anyway, if you are interested in signing up for StashAway, do use our referral link - KPO and CZM Referral Link. You will get $10,000 free management fees for 6 months and we will get $16!

If you want to extract those transactions information from StashAway, do take a look at this article - StashAway Transactions Parser.

If you are interested in the smart portfolio tracker (StocksCafe) which I am using as shown above, sign up using my link for a longer trial period :) Refer to our Referrals page for more information.

You might be interested in previous months update too:

- StashAway Withholding Tax Reimbursement FY 2019

- StashAway - December 2020 - $56,721.26

- StashAway - January 2021 - $59,991.38

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity (2021)

Note: SP Group Wholesale Electricity No Longer The Cheapest Plan

In my previous article, I shared my last 3 months of electricity bills then (Feb, Mar and Apr 2020) to show that the SP Group Wholesale Electricity plan is probably the cheapest electricity plan available in the Open Electricity Market (OEM) as well as the remaining statements for the rest of 2020 here - Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity Part 2. This is a continuation of that article by sharing the more recent statements too.

Jan 2021

177.43 kWh - $26.90 which translate to 15.16 cents/kWh

Feb 2021

357.93 kWh - $57.72 which translate to 16.12 cents/kWh

Mar 2021

326.14 kWh - $57.17 which translate to 17.53 cents/kWh (Do take note that this is no longer the cheapest rate at face value. I shall blog about it soon)

Apr 2021

353.93 kWh - $61.49 which translate to 17.37 cents/kWh

May 2021

360.82 kWh - $64.41 which translate to 17.85 cents/kWh

Jun 2021

416.49 kWh - $73.72 which translate to 17.70 cents/kWh

Jul 2021

385.56 kWh - $73.36 which translate to 19.02 cents/kWh

Aug 2021

345.35 kWh - $94.27 which translate to 27.30 cents/kWh (I ran out of credit and didn't make payment for the previous month. Regardless, this rate is crazy high! In fact, it was even higher than the tariffs rate at 24.11 cents/kWh.)

Using the Open Electricity Market Price Comparison site, there are definitely cheaper plans.

Sep 2021

285.56 kWh - $57.47 which translate to 20.13 cents/kWh 

It seems the SP Group Wholesale Electricity is the cheapest again. Guess I will just continue to observe.

Again, the above are just rough estimates as I included other fees such as GST, meter reading, etc. The more accurate way is to remove them and compute but it is already lower even when I included those miscellaneous fees. You can decide for yourself :)

Anyway, if you are interested in this update, simply bookmark this page as I will just update it with the subsequent months' statement.

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)