Emphasis on Growth is misguided

It is important to have some other measures on the quality of life. Read this report.

Long wait for a bus

It took me 1 hour to reach home from my office, although the distance is only 2 km. This is Singapore. Sigh!

RED Portal (11) - Compass Height

Compass Height in Sengkang has a high amenity index of 85. Here are the amenities within 1 km of this condo. Wow, they got nearly everything!

www.easysearch.sg (Real Estate Data)

Type        Name                                   km 
MRT         Sengkang (ne16)                       0.07 
Bus         Interchange Sengkang Bus Interchange  0.07 
Shopping    Compass Point                         0.13 
Library     Sengkang Community Library            0.13 
Comm Centre Sengkang Community Club (cc)          0.26 
Comm Centre Anchorvale Community Centre (cc)      0.37 
School (P)  Compassvale Primary School            0.45 
School (P)  Seng Kang Primary School              0.47 
School (P)  Nan Chiau Primary School              0.58 
School (S)  Nan Chiau High School                 0.59 
School (S)  Seng Kang Secondary School            0.69 
Comm Centre Rivervale Community Centre (cc)       0.69 
School (S)  Compassvale Secondary School          0.70 
School (S)  Chij St. Joseph's Convent             0.72 
Library     Punggol East Comm Children's Library  0.82 
Shopping    Rivervale Mall                        0.90 
School (P)  North Spring Primary School           0.91 
School (P)  Rivervale Primary School              0.93 

Self insurance for health

Here is a story of a knowledgeable person who choose to self-insure the cost of medical treatments. By paying himself, he learns how to find out about the right price for medical treatment and where to get the treatment.

RED Portal (10) - Top BMP, AMX, Popular Places

The RED Portal now has the following Search options:

Top BMP - display the highest 20 benchmark prices, showing the most expensive projects in Singapore
Top AMX - display the top 20 amenity index, showing the projects with the best nearby amenities (i.e. MRT, shopping, schools)
Popular places - shows all projects within 1 km of a selected place, e.g. school or shopping mall

The top BMP and AMX will be changed later to show 100 projects.

www.easysearch.sg (Real Estate Data)

Unfair reduction in bonus

A policyholder found that the bonus on his maturing policy had been cut by 40% compared to the original projection issued on the point of sale. The reason given by the insurance company was that the bonus was cut due to several economic crisis during the past years. The policyholder argued that one company - who had gone through the same crises- did not cut the bonus, but his the insurer rejected his argument.

The policyholder asked my views on the fairness of the bonus cut and if there is any point in lodging a complaint with FIDREC.

I encourage him to lodge this complaint with FIDREC. A large part of the bonus cut is probably due to the cut in terminal bonus. This cut might have been necessary earlier during this year, when the stock market dropped sharply. However, the stock market had recovered by 60% (from its lowest point) during the past six months. It is only fair that the cut should be partially restored. I hope that FIDREC will consider this point in its adjudication.

Tan Kin Lian

Highest life expectancy

The top 10 countries with the highest life expectancy are:

Andorra 83.5
San Marino 8.16
Japan 81.2
Singapore 80.7
Australia, Switzerland, Sweden 80.4
Hong Kong 80.2
Canada, Iceland 80.1

Singapore ranked 4th in the world, just behind Japan.Andorra and San Marino are quite small countries.

This has implications on CPF Life. People are living longer. They need a life annuity to pay them an income for a lifetime.