You will produce a one-page benefits map that feeds your insurance decisions in module 6.
Hui Min now knows more about her benefits than most of her colleagues. She has read the group plan summary, worked out what ends when the job ends, and planned her flexible benefits for the year. The trouble is that all of it is spread across three sets of notes, a benefits guide and her memory. When she sits down to think about insurance in module 6, she will need it on one page.
This exercise builds that page. It takes about 20 minutes with your benefits guide open, and the map you finish with is the starting point for the insurance brief in lesson 6.4. The plan details in the example are made-up figures.
Make a table in a spreadsheet or a document, with one row per benefit and these columns:
Benefit, such as hospital and surgical, outpatient, dental or group term life What it covers, in a few plain words Limit, the most it pays and any co-payment Who pays, whether the employer, you, or both If you leave, what happens to it Status: covered, partly covered or not covered for your situation
Add one more row at the top for MediShield Life, even though it does not come from your job. Lesson 3.2 explained why: it is the layer that stays when the rest falls away, and the map is easier to read when the base layer is in view.
Work through your benefits guide one section at a time and copy the facts across. Use the guide's own figures for limits, not your memory of them.
Hui Min's map starts like this, with example figures. MediShield Life: basic hospital cover for large bills, premiums from MediSave, stays for life. Hospital and surgical: up to S$20,000 a year at ward class B1, employer pays, ends on her last day. Outpatient: panel GP visits with a S$5 co-payment, employer pays, ends on her last day. Dental: up to S$150 a year, employer pays, ends with the job. Group term life: S$96,000, which is 24 months of her basic salary, employer pays, ends with the job. Flexible benefits: S$600 a year, use it or lose it, ends with the job.
Now go down the status column. This is where the map turns personal. The same benefit can be covered for one person and only partly covered for another.
Hui Min marks outpatient and dental as covered, since they meet her normal needs. She marks hospital and surgical as partly covered, because the yearly limit is modest and a long stay or a serious diagnosis could go past it. She marks group term life as partly covered too. Her parents do not depend on her income today, but she gives them a monthly allowance, and module 4 makes that a fixed part of her budget. For disability or long-term loss of income, she has nothing at all, so that row reads not covered.
Not every gap needs action now. Add a note beside each partly covered or not covered line: does this matter now, or only if something changes?
For Hui Min, the income loss gap matters now, because she supports her parents and has a study loan to repay. The hospital limit matters now, though less, since MediShield Life sits beneath it. The group life gap matters more if her parents come to rely on her allowance, so she notes it as "matters if their situation changes". And every group line carries the same second note: all of this ends if she changes jobs or takes a break.
Then pick the two gaps you think matter most. Hui Min chooses loss of income from illness or disability, and the risk of being uninsured for a condition that develops while she relies on group cover. These are the two she will take into module 6.
Save the map with your policy documents, whether that is a folder on your laptop or a cloud drive. Put the date at the top. When you change jobs, or your employer changes its plan, update the map rather than starting again.
A finished map has a row for every benefit plus MediShield Life, every column filled from the guide, a status on each line, a note on when each gap matters, and two gaps highlighted. Get your own benefits guide open, or the one for an offer you are weighing, and start with the top row.
Complete the benefits map for your current or offered job and highlight the two gaps you think matter most.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).