The COVID19 pandemic has thrown global finances, both public and personal, into chaos. Millions of people are losing their jobs and economic uncertainty is affecting everyone. This slow down during the Circuit Breaker could be used as an opportunity to take stock of your life and your finances and redirect if you need to. If you need any help going through your policies at this time, please get in touch with the Expat Insurance Singapore team we will do our best to help you find the best value cover for you, your family and your employees.

In the meantime, our resident Expat Insurance Singapore Money Maven Andrea Kennedy has some advice for you if things aren’t going your way during COVD19 pandemic.

Take stock of your insurance.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Does my current life insurance cover my long-term needs if my benefits package changes?
• If you had to source and pay for your expat health cover, how would you do that? Can you afford to stay in Singapore and make that financial commitment? Or would you move to a place where you can rely on a universal healthcare system? Provided of course, that you can move and live there.

If you would like some help discussing the finer points of your policies with us, please let us know and we would be happy to go through everything with you.

Have a Plan B

Anyone who does Financial Planning professionally or for their own family has a Plan B. Plan B is your back up plan for when your ‘Best case scenario’ doesn’t work out. Plan B is something that every single household needs and it’s much easier to think through a Plan B when you are not in any financial panic or stress.

A Plan B is not necessarily a permanent plan, but rather one that helps us imagine, ‘What if things do not work out precisely as I planned?’ It helps us to clarify what gives your family the means to be able to provide some level of financial security or stability while you are in transition.

Take an Inventory of your life Costs

The big fixed costs in Singapore are rental payments, car payments and schooling for most expatriates. Here are some basic questions that a Plan B should answer:

1) Where would you be living and how would we be living if it was not what we are doing now? Would you move condos or cities?

2) If your children had to change schools, what would be the next best option?

3) Do you need a car, or can you make do with public transport? And how will that impact where you live and how your family gets around?

4) If you own the property that you are living in, can you rent it out and for what price?

6) If you had to pay for your own cover; Health, life, travel and home and contents insurance, could you afford that?

7) More specifically to COVID19; If you are running your own business, how can you change or optimize that business to a changing B2B and B2C environment? Can your retail shop move online? Can your business services be offered remotely?

These are just a few of the questions that one has to always have in place for your Plan B, and there are likely more that are specific to each family. The best way to create a Plan B is with transparency, healthy communication and an open mind. There are many possibilities open to families that can be the most flexible in their planning, and the more flexible we are, the easiest it is to rebound from any setbacks.

The thing to remember is that this WILL be over. Life may look a little different, but there will come a time when this will be behind us. If we can take what is happening now and use this as a lesson for the future, then we will be the better off for it.

Please let us know if our teams can help you or your business in any way.