Our Life Journey…

I was really tired since the day I return from Ipoh. I slept earlier, I ate very little and all I can think of was to rest my head on my smelly fluffy fluf-fluf. I did my round of blog hopping everyday but I’ve no motivation to blog at all. Partly it’s because I’ve problem uploading photos into my blog after the Wordpress upgrades *Time to call Mr. Host for help*. Anyway to cut the long story short, I was just feeling lazy and a little demotivated by unexpected news around me that’s really really ..erm… UNEXPECTED! Even the drivers on the road started to annoy me after the fuel hike lor. There are less cars on the road now BUT to those who’re still driving….” Can you guys drive slightly faster or not?”  Not that I’m encouraging you guys to SPEED  up to 110kmph lar but please ’tekan’ your minyak slightly harder Cannnnnnn?

 *Take a deeppppppp breath*

I’m back from my hibernation because tonight I need to get my ICI KIT skin care products from the CLARIN’s counter before the price increase this coming 1st July 2008. I hope SKII won’t! Sigh… Barang naik harga LAGI… !! Chezzz!

Regular readers of this blog may remember a post I’ve written previously about ‘Insurance’. Well, between the time of these two postings, I’ve encountered several people with the assumption they’ve gotten wrong insurance covers and therefore, deeply regretted their move of getting them. I spent some time talking to each of them and could draw the following conclusions:

1. All blamed their agent who sold them their insurance policies.

2. All were ignorant when it comes to insurance and the various insurance products available.

3. All were policy holders of investment linked products.

4. All presumed something’s wrong with their insurance plan(s) after a period of time (more than one year after subscription).

In my opinion, the agents are not the ones to blame when it is our ignorance that put us in such situations. True, ‘some’ insurance agents are profit-minded and outright irresponsible when proposing insurance coverages. But, this does not mean we should just sit back and take their word for it without knowing what we’re paying for.

With regards to personal insurance, it is basically a form of protection against potential loss of future income. This means when we buy insurance, we are getting ourselves financial protection in the event something undesirable happen to us (unexpectedly). We get ourselves (and our family) protected because of the uncertain future. To put it simply, we buy insurance if we can’t afford anything to happen to us. I would not be needing insurance if I could predict my future accurately or if I’m filthy rich. But, I’m neither a seer nor a billionaire. So, I got myself some insurance. Please note super-rich people buy insurance too – David Beckham insured his legs and Jennifer Lopez got her shapely rear-end insured – they insured their revenue sources.

For normal chaps like us, we normally buy certain types of insurance i.e. life, personal accident, medical / hospitalization and critical illnesses plans. Below is a brief (and simplistic) description of these insurance types:

· Life insurance provides a lump sum of money in the event of death – financial protection for the people we leave behind.

· Personal accident (PA) insurance to cover us in the event of accidents – financial relief in the event of disablement due to accident.

· Medical / hospitalization plans to cover our treatment in hospitals – financial relief by covering treatment and hospitalization charges.

· Critical illnesses plans provides a lump sum of money when diagnosed with any one of the thirty-six critical illnesses – to offset treatment costs (and / or provide financial relief to family due to disrupted source of income).

Now, for those of you wondering if you’ve gotten the right plan(s), the first thing you should do is read the policy (or policies) again. Understand the content and what you’ve been covered against. Next, just use logic to help in your analysis. For example, young chaps should get heavier protection on PA and critical illnesses because they have many money making years to look forward to. They can’t afford to have crippling accidents and disabling ailments (from any of the critical diseases) to jeopardize their earnings potential. Therefore, in the event any of the above happened, the suitably insured young chap could at least carry on with life even if his normal source of income is disrupted. The young chap may consider getting the medical / hospitalization plan as well – a small sum of money paid regularly to maintain the plan could be used to offset major medical / treatment bills in the future.

As for life insurance, we should get it if we need to leave a sum of money to the people we leave behind, especially for the purpose of covering all remaining critical liabilities i.e. house loans - we don’t want our love ones to lose their home when we’re no longer here to pay the loan installment. Well, there’s still a possibility we could be here and unable to pay the loan – so, what we do is we ensure our PA and critical illnesses plans are suitably sized to cover our cost of living, treatment costs and all outstanding loans. Pure logic, right?

Hope the above is helpful to those of you with doubts on your insurance plans.

I shall write about my opinions on the pro and cons of investment-linked insurance plans in my next posting.

THE RULES
1. Each blogger must post these rules first.
2. Each blogger starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
3. Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their 8 things.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment, telling them that they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog.

So you wanna know the 8 random facts about me? Here goes…

1. I was once a ‘FRIDGE’. Don’t believe? <click here>Believe me now? heh
2. I was once a very active chatter box over the Internet and I told everybody my name was Valerie. At that time, I don’t believe we can find REAL friends in chatrooms. The only Internet ‘friend’ I didn’t lied about my REAL NAME to was X-T… and yeah, not only we became real friends, by the end of this year, we’re getting married *eyes rolled*. Oh, and to this lady friend of mine… thanks for showing me that Internet friendship are not ALL fake. Anybody knew a lady by the name of Valerie via the chatroom many many years ago? haha….
3. I hate doctors and I’m scared of medicine.. Well, I don’t know why but usually, my sickness will be healed immediately everytime I enter the doctor’s office. That’s the reason why I hardly take MCs.. *dumb isn’t it?*
4.  I’m EXTREMELY afraid of roaches. Seriously! My encounter with 2 ugly-yukky roaches in the toilet when I was 4 yrs old left me with this phobia… They….they…crawl..up…my…….”fill in the appropriate word here“……..when I was peeing!!! :S
5. I sleep talk..hehe.. Please call me while I’m sleeping and I “MIGHT” possibly tell you all my secrets..GO ON..DIAL MY NUMBER hahahha..
6. I’m an addict… to coffee of course! If I’m cranky, give me a cup of coffee. It works ”most” the time! Make sure it’s a good coffee..or else…I’ll get crankier……
7. It’s never easy to make me angry…well, I mean really REALLY ANGRY…. it takes a real idiot to make me achieve that level of anger…. <guess who> *winks*
8. Since the departure of the unfaithful ONE…. I was actively involved in helping friends and people I knew through the Internet who are currently facing similar fate as me years ago. I love sharing my experiences and hope you woman … and man out there won’t be as DUMB as the ‘old’me hehehe….  

 Aha….. now you know! I’m going to bed now and I’ll be pondering why did I actually reveal my weakness to the whole dang world a minute ago… :p

I tag no one :p

Here’s a little teaser of my custom made veil, the wedding gown and the dresses for the pre-wedding photography session

My gowns were ready for collection last weekend. I salute to the rest of the bride-to-be that has the ability and stamina to tryout 30-40 gowns in 1 session… it’s definitely hard work to fit into these heavy armors dresses. Mine were mostly tailor made, therefore, I’ve only 3 to try out and I’m already sweaty all over!

1 week break for L’abeille before she’ll have to hunt for another gown for the dinner reception…

Looking at the way things are going in our country, I wish to write a post about it in order to get it off my chest and perhaps share my view of what our journey onwards would be like.

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Ouch! In my opinion, an apt word to use whenever we, Malaysians decide to procure something like groceries, household items, services and so on. Ouch! because it wasn’t so expensive before. Ouch! because I could get a lot more then. However, we should brace ourselves - our journey into the world of pain is just beginning.

Looking ahead, I do not see much positive prospects for our country. Our most precious natural resources, crude oil, is nearly depleted. When it’s gone, what’s left to provide recurring revenue to the country? Other sectors that provide revenues to our country like agriculture and manufacturing are miniscule in comparison and are being overshadowed by other Asian countries. Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan overtook us years ago in the automobile, electronics and heavy industries even though we’ve kick started these industries way ahead them. Also, foreign investors are not keen to invest in our country – they would rather invest in Singapore, China, India, Thailand and lately, Vietnam.

Ever wondered why Singapore, a very small country (it’s a small island!) with no natural resources, is able to thrive economically? Well, they have the foresight to be the commerce centre of the South-East Asia region – the trading centre within the region similar to London, New York and Hong Kong.

Multiple billions of ringgit had been spent throughout the decades for the development of the country. And, what have we gotten? An unfriendly transport system and some mega structures which, unfortunately does not add much value in the eyes of foreign investment communities. Couple it to a ‘perceived’ corrupt administration and saddle it with multiple red tape (and fluctuating) foreign policies, foreign investors has to think long and hard before putting money in our country.

I believe at some point in the past, we were planning to wrestle the commerce centre mantle from Singapore (and throttle them) with the building of the new causeway bridge and new railway lines. However, I believe this is no longer the plan. Come to think of it, I don’t think we have any survival plans at all.

Now our resources are dwindling. Where does this leave us? What’s going to happen when we start importing oil in a few years time? We need not look far for the answers – just look at our closest neighbors: Indonesia and the Philippines. We may go towards the quality of life similar to our neighbors soon.

Ouch! time, everyone.