You will be able to plan how to use flexible benefits and claims before they expire.
In late November, an email goes round Hui Min's office: flexible benefits claims for the year close on 15 December. Half the team rushes to book dental appointments and buy running shoes that might qualify. Arjun realises he has not claimed anything all year. His S$600 allowance, in this example, will simply disappear.
He is not careless. He just never sat down with the benefits guide. Benefits you do not use are pay you do not collect, and this lesson is about collecting it without a December scramble. The figures are made-up examples.
A flexible benefits allowance is a sum your employer sets aside for you each year to spend on a list of approved items. Different companies call it flexi benefits, a wellness allowance or flex dollars. The detail that catches people out is the reset. In many plans, whatever you have not claimed by the end of the benefit year is gone, and the new year starts again at the full amount.
So the allowance only has value if you use it. Arjun's S$600 was worth S$600 on 1 January and nothing on 16 December. In lesson 1.3, Put a price on benefits, leave and the hours you work, you valued benefits at what you would otherwise spend. A benefit you forget to claim is worth zero, whatever it was worth on paper.
The benefit year may not match the calendar year. Some follow the company's financial year, and some start on the day you joined. Check which yours is.
Every plan has its own list. Common items include dental treatment, eye tests and glasses, gym memberships or fitness classes, health screenings, and sometimes things like vaccinations or physiotherapy. Some plans are broad and some are narrow, and an item that qualifies at one company may not at another. The benefits guide is the only reliable source, so read the list once, properly.
Then read the claims process. Most plans want a claim submitted through an HR system or an insurer's app, with an itemised receipt showing your name, the date, the provider and what was paid for. A receipt that only shows a total may be rejected. Some plans pay you back through payroll, so the reimbursement appears as a line on your payslip, which is one more thing your monthly check from lesson 2.4 can catch.
Medical claims under the group plan have their own rules, separate from flexible benefits. Outpatient visits at panel clinics are often settled directly, but visits elsewhere, specialist bills or anything you paid for upfront usually need a claim form and receipts.
Claims have deadlines, and they are often strict. A plan may require a claim within a set number of days of the visit or purchase, as well as a final cut-off for the year. Miss either and the money is gone, however valid the claim.
The simplest system is a photo of every receipt the day you get it, into one folder on your phone, and a calendar reminder a month before the year's cut-off. Hui Min also writes the claim deadline from her benefits guide at the top of that folder's name, so she sees it every time she opens it.
Annual leave works in a similar way. Depending on your company's policy, unused leave may expire at the end of the year, or only a limited number of days may carry forward into the next. Some companies pay out unused leave and many do not. Your contract or the employee handbook will say which rules apply to you.
If leave expires, the days you do not take are part of your pay you have given back. That is a reason to plan leave early in the year, not to save it all up and lose some in December.
Hui Min goes through her guide in January. She has S$600 in flexible benefits, in this example. She expects a dental check-up and scaling at about S$180 and an eye test and new glasses at about S$250, which leaves S$170 she might put towards a health screening. She notes the claim deadline, the panel clinic list for outpatient visits, and the date her leave year ends.
It takes her twenty minutes. Arjun, starting from scratch in November, takes an afternoon and still loses most of his allowance. The next step is to do Hui Min's twenty minutes with your own guide.
Write a one-line plan for each flexible benefit and claim type you have this year, with its expiry date.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).