Our Insurance and Investment Plan for Baby Ong

TLDR

1. Must buy hospitalization insurance/integrated shield plan

2. BTIR (Buy Term, Invest the Rest)

3. Personally, I believe that CI/ECI riders are unnecessary

4. Forget about Endowment/ILP, use one of the robo-advisors or simply invest yourself

We wanted to get hospitalization insurance/integrated shield plan for Baby Ong as we deemed that to be the most important insurance one should get given the high cost of healthcare in Singapore.

The agent came with a bunch of other recommendations such as whole life, endowment and ILP. His rationale of getting a whole life is because it is the "cheapest" rate/premium one can get at age 0/1, pay 25 years get lifetime coverage, and cash value upon maturity. Endowment and ILP are to save up/invest for the baby education/university fees. I didn't buy it (both his recommendations and the policy). lol.

Let's just run through some numbers using the Aviva PI/product summary as a reference. The whole life insurance costs $1,408.50 and the early CI rider takes up the majority of the remaining premium at $732 per year. In my opinion, there's no need to get $300k ECI for the baby. CI is to cover the possible loss of income so that money will be the least of one's concern when one is recovering from it. Money is definitely not a problem for the baby. We would rather self-insure by saving the premium and investing them to grow our portfolio such that it will be big enough for us not to worry about money too.

These are the breakdown of the surrender/cash value for the whole life policy at different years before year 25 where the premium is no longer required.

Let's just assume using the best-case scenario of 4.75% investment return for the surrender/cash value of the policy. Compare the above with a BTIR (Buy Term, Invest the Rest) approach with a much higher coverage - $1 million.

The above is the premium breakdown for Tokio Marine $1 million term insurance with the various riders. Anyway, the one we got for Baby Ong is with TPD and a $100k CI rider because the system insisted that there must be a CI rider tied to it costs $385 per year.

A simple spreadsheet forecast will show the difference in the total premium paid (~$10k). If we were to invest the difference in premium (the remaining premium after 25 years for the term insurance will be paid out from the portfolio), our portfolio will grow to a sum larger than the surrender/cash value of the whole life policy with an assumption of 4.75%.

Take a look at the difference if we assume our investment will grow at 7% instead. Not forgetting if one were to surrender the whole life insurance to get the cash value, the coverage will cease while we can cash out anytime from the portfolio. It doesn't make sense to buy whole life insurance for the cash value. Play around with the spreadsheet and forecast them yourself - Whole Life vs Term + Invest (For Baby)

Had we simply purchase what was recommended by the agent, the difference in terms of total premium paid (100% more) and portfolio would have been much greater! Having said that, it is not an apple to apple comparison given that the whole life has CI and ECI coverage and that's why I only compared using the whole life premium. Anyway, do take a look at this long article written by Kyith from Investment Moat too - The True Reason to Choose Term Life Insurance Over Whole Life.

I will not recommend Endowment and ILP as a form of savings/investment for your baby's education fund. An endowment plan is simply too conservative for the baby with a long investment horizon (20+ years). ILP has extremely high fees. The worst part is both of them require you to commit for a long period of time. On the other hand, if you were to invest yourself or if you have no knowledge on how to invest, simply use any of the robo-advisors, you will have the flexibility to stop investing or cash out at any point in time without any penalty. I would say endowment was a popular choice for our parents' era where investing was much harder/challenging but it shouldn't be the case nowadays. There are much better alternatives.

Based on the above, we will be getting Baby Ong the $1 million term insurance and will be investing the difference of $100 per month into StashAway 36% risk index portfolio. Although it is the riskiest portfolio, we find it to be relatively safe across 20 years. It simply means there is a 1% chance at any given year that the portfolio might lose >=36% of the portfolio. You can read more about the risk index here.

There's a 50% chance the portfolio might grow to $101k in 20 years time, 75% chance it will be $70k or 95% chance it will be just $41k considering the capital is just $24k. Unfortunately, we will only know the actual performance 20 years later.

Our StashAway 22% Risk Index Cash Portfolio

My StashAway 36% Risk Index SRS Portfolio

Why StashAway? I really like their portfolio. It is performing pretty well (notice the XIRR for both portfolios are double-digits as compared to the conservative 7% I used in the forecast above) and relatively safe (lower volatility and the max dropdown are within the respective risk index). Having said that, I had my reservation previously when I first found out about the 40% estate tax issue if one is to invest in the US market - Estate Tax - The Issue Not Addressed By Some Robo Advisors. 

However, given that they have openly indicated that a joint account is in the pipeline, I feel more confident that our investment will not be taxed if anything happens to me once I can set up the joint account with CZM. With that, we are now more comfortable with investing more money through StashAway.

Our Insurance and Investment Plan for Baby Ong:

1. Great Eastern GREAT SupremeHealth P PLUS + GREAT TotalCare Elite-P

2. Tokio Marine $1 million Term Insurance with TPD and $100 CI

3. $100 per month investment to StashAway 36% Risk Index Portfolio

In my opinion, if you are spending too much money on various insurance be it for yourself or your children, you will not be able to invest for your retirement. Instead, you will be helping the agent to retire. lol.

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!

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

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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)_/¯

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Mount Alvernia Delivery & Phototherapy Charges

Raising a child is definitely not cheap if one chooses to go the private route. If money is a concern, I believe the public route will be significantly cheaper. You can read about our experience here (Our Baby Journey) when we went to KKH as a public/subsidized patient. It wasn't too bad except that you don't get a fixed gynae and there's no ultrasound every visit (only listening to the baby's heartbeat).

Anyway, a rough estimate of our expenses so far since we discovered CZM's pregnancy is >$20k. To be honest, I lost track of our expenses since last year November. Shall try to resume it after the baby can sleep through the night. lol. Today I will be sharing one of the biggest expenses, the delivery charges!

Mount Alvernia Maternity Package can be found here and the one we got was a single room for normal delivery with epidural which is $3,812.41. Well, that is not even half the total cost. Our total damage: $11,214.48

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Yeah. About half went to the doctors (gynae, anesthetist, and PD). We could deduct $2,550 from my Medisave, hence the cash outlay is $8,664.48. Do note that this is just the delivery charges and does not include the consultation/ultrasound fees paid to the gynae. Estimated to be around/more than $3k.

In our previous post (1 Month as a Parent), I blogged about how Baby Ong has jaundice and was admitted to the hospital for phototherapy. Let's take a look at the bill!

One day of phototherapy cost us $967.92!

We were able to deduct another $450 from my Medisave, hence the cash outlay is $517.92. To be honest, I was a bit shocked by the bill. Never expected it to be near $1k. When the result of her blood test was out (290+) and the PD was saying it is near the risky level of 300. Money was the least of our concern and we just wanted her to be healthy and safe, so we immediately admitted her thinking that should be the best course of action. 

However, when we visited her later at night to pass the nurse some breastmilk, we could hear her crying from outside the nursery as though she was left there to cry the whole time. It could have been us overthinking it but it certainly broke our hearts. If we could redo it, we would have rented the phototherapy equipment and done it ourselves. It would have been much cheaper (~$200-$400 for 3 days 2 nights rental according to theAsianparent) and we could have taken better care of her. On the bright side, her jaundice level has already dropped to ~130+ when we visited the PD last week. Hopefully, in the next 2 weeks, it will drop below 100 and she can be "discharged" officially.

This also explains why we were not buying any/many stocks for the last 2 months.

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1 Month as a Parent

It has been about a month since the birth of Baby Ong and we just "celebrated" her full/first month.

The journey till date wasn't an easy one. The first few days were the worst and most stressful as we were constantly worried about her not having enough breast milk and we didn't know why she was crying/not sleeping. It was extremely hard to get her to go to sleep. Imagine in the middle of the night (2/3 am), spending 1-2 hours trying to coax her to sleep before we can get some sleep too. Honestly, it was just so tiring!

The worst part was during our first PD visit (about one week later), she had to be separated from us and was admitted to the hospital for phototherapy as her jaundice level was too high (290+). As tiring as it was, we still preferred to have her by our side. It was such an emotional day that CZM and I cried and hugged each other to sleep consoling each other that we can finally have a good sleep/rest. Having a baby/child really changes one's mentality.

Even until now, her jaundice level is still relatively high (~140+ that's why she looks so tanned above, probably from the phototherapy and whenever we could "sun" her) and we are still monitoring now. The PD said it is likely breastmilk jaundice which should be harmless but we just can't stop worrying. In addition, she still has to draw blood to do various tests and it pains us to see that happening. On the bright side, PD said she's growing up well, putting on 1.4kg since birth. She's 4.1 kg now (~50 percentile).

If we could turn back time, I will invest all my money in Bitcoin/Tesla. Hahaha. Jokes aside, the one thing we would have done differently is to get a confinement lady. The transition was simply too sudden and rough. CZM's parents offered to help/do her confinement and we thought it was an excellent idea since who else would have taken better care of CZM. We moved back to her parents' place with the intention to stay for a few months in order for CZM to get as much support as possible. 

Unfortunately, the difference in opinions on how to look after the baby gave us too much additional stress that we decided to move back home immediately after CZM's confinement was over. Some examples:

- Whenever we carry the baby to coax her to sleep, they would say we are spoiling her. Kept asking us to leave her on the cot and let her cry to sleep. Read - Can You Spoil a Newborn? 

- Baby needs about 16 hours of sleep time. Assuming the baby got to eat every 3 hours, that's 8 feeds. In order to get the 16 hours of sleep, we would need to change the diaper, feed, and coax her back to sleep within an hour but her parents always insisted that the baby should have playtime and don't need to sleep so much. Read - Newborn and Baby Sleep Basics.

- We hate it the most when the baby's sleep is being disturbed. Whenever relatives come over to visit and they would always offer/ask the relative to carry the baby when she's sleeping. While we understand that relatives are excited and would like to play with the baby, we would still prefer to have the baby's sleep prioritized.

Having said that, we really appreciate all the help that was provided (no need to do any household chores for one month!) and one of the reasons for getting confinement lady is so that it wouldn't be so tiring for her parents too. CZM's mum got to wake up early to buy fresh food from the market and cook for her. So if you are considering getting a confinement lady or getting your own parents to help, I will recommend the former to avoid any unnecessary conflict and you will have one whole month to learn how to take care of the baby.

This tip is from CZM. For those that are intending to breastfeed, do invest/buy a handsfree pump. It gives her the flexibility to do so many things (eat, watch tv/mobile, cook, etc.) while pumping. The only thing you can't do is sleep. lol. Even if you are planning to let the baby latch, you would still need to pump to prevent engorgement. If you are wondering, CZM is using Imani Handsfree Electrical Breastpump i2.

We received some red packets/money from relatives, friends, and colleagues as well as the $3,000 baby bonus from the government. We are still considering what to do with that money, should we invest on her behalf or simply pocket/keep it ourselves to offset all the expenses we have incurred. One thing that is for sure is we do not plan to max her CDA account immediately although the government is providing dollar to dollar matching up to $3,000 because once the money is in, it is "stuck" at a low-interest account. Anyway, we can do that anytime before the child turns 12 years old and there's ample time.

Any baby tips? 

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Baby Ong is Out!

Baby Ong was delivered on the 8th December 2020! Isn't she so cute?! She has inherited her mother's double eyelid eyes <3 Baby Ong EDD was supposed to be on the 4th December 2020 and we were past due. Our gynae (Dr Goh SL) said there's no need to induce immediately and we were told to monitor her for another 6 days before inducing her on the 10th. However, during our appointment on the 7th, Dr Goh said that CZM's placenta is getting old (one of the overdue pregnancy risk) and recommended the induction of labour on the 8th (midnight). Although it was just a few days difference, we were still pretty surprised!

At midnight, we cabbed down to Mount Alvernia and headed to the delivery suite. The nurse was helping CZM to set up and I had to head down to the reception to do the admission. 

During the admission, I paid a deposit $3,812.41 for their single room (NORMAL DELIVERY WITH EPIDURAL (2 DAYS)) and asked for one that is further away from the construction site (Our Lady Ward). I also opt for express checkout so that we do not have to wait/queue again on the day of discharge. Hence, I am still not sure how much is the total damage as of now. Shall blog about it separately.

Given that we are still in Phase 2 of the Circuit Breaker, there can only be 5 visitors per day (including the husband, technically just 4 visitors) which is very unfortunate since our siblings, relatives, and friends all can't visit.

CZM in the delivery suite in pain :(  Yes, she had to wear her mask. There's a reclining sofa/armchair at the corner of the room for the hubby and it's not very comfortable. Do bring a jacket and wear long pants as it gets pretty cold in the middle of the night. CZM could only administer epidural around 7am+ after she was 3 cm dilated. Not sure if it was due to the effects of induction, CZM was already screaming away right before the epidural was administered and her eyes were bloodshot. Once the epidural was administered, she could finally rest as there was zero contraction pain. 

Heart rate (above) and rate of contraction (below)

Around 8am+, there was a huge scare! One of the nurses entered the delivery suite because the baby's heart rate had dropped and asked me to wait outside the room. While I was waiting, another 3 nurses rushed in! Imagine my horror! I felt so helpless and could only google about what's happening.

Anyway, a baby’s heart rate during labour should be between 110 and 160 beats per minute. As you can see from the photo above, her heart rate went as low as 50/60+. Not sure what the nurses did but they probably gave CZM some drug to stop her contraction totally (for a period of time ~30min to an hour) and the baby heart rate returned to normal. We asked both the gynae and PD about what happened and they said it is normal for heart rate to drop. Oh well, all that matters is both CZM and the baby are safe and healthy now.

At 2pm+, Baby Ong came out! It was such a touching moment and I am not shy to admit that I actually cried. To all the father-to-be, if your wife is asking for whatever "push" present, just get it for them. It is actually the least we can do. We can never imagine the pain they have to go through during labour. 

The "staycation" in the single room was over before we know it. The real challenge begins at home. lol. We could always send the baby back to the nursery whenever we could not coax her to stop crying. The nurses would always tell us that the baby is crying because she wants more milk. Unfortunately, CZM did not have sufficient milk supply then and we got the nurses to feed her formula milk instead. Anyway, the nurses in Mount Alvernia were all very approachable and encouraging. We did not encounter anyone that was fierce/impatient unlike what our mothers went through.

Before we left/discharged, we went to the chapel to bless the baby although we are not Catholic. It is free and no harm trying :) We have been pretty sleep deprived since then but every time we look at Baby Ong and her little movement, it is all worthwhile. I can stare at her all day! No wonder there is this Chinese saying about the daughter being the father's lover in his previous life (前世情人). lol.

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Our Baby Journey

Time flies, Baby Ong is about 5 months old already! We just did the week 20/fetal anomaly scan recently and we are glad that she's growing up healthily. Shall take some time off this long weekend to blog about our experiences so far.

Gynae Review

Raffles Hospital - Dr Shamini Nair

A few days after we knew about the pregnancy (week 5/6), CZM noticed some light bleeding/spotting and we panicked. We have not even research or decided on a gynae to visit and was simply googling for the nearest gynae. Called 2 of them but they were fully booked and eventually managed to book an appointment at Raffles Women's Centre.

After understanding what happened, Dr Shamini was very assuring, told us not to worry and explained the possible reasons for spotting. After which, she suggested doing 2 blood tests (2 days apart) to see if the hCG are doubling. You can read more about hCG levels here. 

We also did our first baby ultrasound then. Look at how small Baby Ong was! Anyway, the result of the blood test showed that the hCG levels did double and she concluded that the spotting was likely due to implantation bleeding. We really like the way she engaged/assured us and would have just continued to visit her but she does not do delivery anymore. CZM prefers a gynae that can see her from start to the end so we went on to look for other gynae.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Blood Test + Medicine/Supplement: $395.60

2nd Consultation + Blood Test: $156.20

Thomson Medical - Dr Benjamin Tham

Dr Tham was recommended by a colleague and he has plenty of good reviews/recommendations in the SingaporeMotherhood forum. We visited him a few weeks later at around week 7/8 so that we will be able to hear the baby's heartbeat and true enough we did!

There really isn't much to fault him on except that he didn't let us listen to the heartbeat for a little bit longer and his answer to our question didn't feel as assuring compared to Dr Shamini. For example, CZM experienced discomfort/pain at the stomach area one night and we asked him about it. His answer was somewhere along the line now no pain all good, that night pain not good. Eh?? He also told us that he's very liberal and the mummies visiting him can eat sashimi in moderation. Eh??? Definitely not when the whole world/internet says to avoid raw food/sashimi. Anyway, CZM didn't feel comfortable with him as the gynae and that is what matters.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Medicine/Supplement: $318.85

Mount Alvernia - Dr Goh Shen Li

Similarly, Dr Goh was recommended by another colleague and she has plenty of good reviews/recommendations too. We visited her one week after visiting Dr Tham. She let us listen to the heartbeat for a longer period of time and was more patient during the ultrasound process as well as explaining various things to us.

Most importantly, CZM felt more comfortable with her. The only bad thing is Dr Goh usually travels overseas during the first 2 weeks of December which is the EDD for Baby Ong. However, we are guessing/hoping that she would not be travelling anywhere this year.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Medicine/Supplement: $345.05

2nd Consultation + Ultrasound + Medicine/Supplement:$241.60

Antenatal Package (10 consultations, for 2nd trimester onwards): $1,500 (excluding GST)

Week 20/Fetal Anomaly Scan ($250 excluding GST) + Medicine/Supplement: $351.50

KKH - Public Patient with Random Gynae

This was CZM's idea as she wanted to save more money on the NIPT (Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing) test. Thomson Medical would have cost ~$1,300+ (excluding GST) while KKH subsidized rate would have cost $400+. At least that was what we thought or up to a year ago based on this forum thread...

KKH takes both private and public patients. The difference is private patients can consult the same gynae and pay the full rate while the public patients get random/different gynae for every visit at a subsidized rate. One will have to first visit the polyclinic to get a referral to KKH in order to qualify for the subsidized rate and that was what we did.

Polyclinic for referral: $13.20

To be honest, our experience with KKH was not too bad. People (including ourselves) generally think that public hospitals would have a much longer waiting time but surprisingly, our 3 visits were pretty acceptable/reasonable. 

Another pain point apart from no fixed gynae was that I was not allowed to enter the room when the nurse/staff was doing the ultrasound. Anyway, long story short, NIPT is no longer being subsidized by the government anymore and we ended up paying $750 for it. It is still cheaper but the savings are not as significant anymore. Having said that, the subsidized rate is really really very cheap/affordable.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Flu Vaccination: $109.29 (out of which $66.29 was for the flu vaccination which can be deducted from our Medisave. Hence, the out of pocket cost was just $43.)

NIPT Harmony Test (No more government subsidy): $750

3rd Consultation + Whooping Cough Vaccination: $92.14 (similarly, $84.14 was for the vaccination, paid using Medisave and the out of pocket cost was just $8)

Oscar vs NIPT

Both Oscar test/First Trimester Screening (FTS) and NIPT are used to screen/test for genetic conditions such as Down Syndrome. Oscar is a lot cheaper ($300+) but has a higher false-positive rate. Although the general advice is to first do the Oscar test and skip the NIPT if everything is fine in order to save some money but we feel that it is actually better to just skip Oscar and pay for the NIPT. The reason is we want to avoid the double whammy - scare from the Oscar result while waiting for the NIPT result (at least 2 weeks) + paying for both Oscar and NIPT.

We have also been shopping around (Shopee, Lazada, and Amazon) for baby items:

Bonbijou Luxos+ Stroller	$439.00
Haenim 4G Classic UV Steriliser	$400.00
Ergobaby Omni 360 Baby Carrier Cool Air Mesh	$199.83
BabyLove Easy Go Baby Playpen	$190.94
Space Design Baby Safety Play Yard Playpen Playground	$119.00
Rainforest Jumperoo	$79.90
BabyLove Foldable Bath Tub Stand	$45.37

Total expenses till date: $6,327.52

Looking forward to Baby Ong arrival!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
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