Pregnancy Insurance: Why it is important

If you are uninsured and have discovered a new pregnancy, you are not alone. Approximately 13% of all pregnant women are without insurance, which means about 780,000 women each year have questions related to pregnancy and maternity insurance and coverage.

The fact that you are not alone does not make paying for prenatal care and pregnancy health services any easier, but Pregnancy Insurance is here to help.

Pregnancy Insurance Stats
13% of all pregnancies are uninsured
57% of uninsured pregnant women do not begin prenatal care until the second trimester or later
12% of all births are premature
Approximately 1 in 10 babies are born with low –birth weight.

Now the most interesting part of this post: THE COSTS!

Analysts reports an average cost of a birth is $4,000, but a premature birth costs $80,000. So better start your insurance plans now!

Returns on Fixed Deposits are NOT GUARANTEED!

Do you know that your returns on fixed deposits are never guaranteed? Think again... Your only guarantee might only be the $20,000 deposit insurance (requirement by the Authority).

As long as a bank runs into default (resulted from bankruptcy), you will loose every single cent in the bank. This will affect not only your returns but also your initial principal investment. Hence, with mediocre returns on your fixed deposits, it might be a smarter choice to start looking at other instruments with similar risk accompanied with better returns.

I would prefer putting my money in different banks (with good credit ratings of course) to diversify the risk by investing in the form of structured notes, which is currently available in the market. Returns are twice as good, especially during this period of interest rate slowdown. :)

UT Portfolio as at 24 Mar 07

It has been 2 weeks since my last post..... NSmen duties, have to serve another 2 years before the end of my term. Shall not bore you with the details; here's my result slip after 2 weeks of absence... NOT BAD AT ALL!

UT Portfolio as at 11 Mar 07

With little sign of annual wage review, the week has been another low for me as well as for my investments. :( With half my profits wiped in the past two weeks, i have rebalanced my portfolio as follow:


At the same time, i have invested another $5K into DWS China Etqy (CASH) to boost the growth on the portfolio. This is a tactical position, thus i would not recommend low-risk takers to follow. I am likely to maintain the holding for at least 3 months unless another massive correction takes place.

As per my previous posting, i am very bullish of the european market and i have been proven right so far with my current portfolio. As seen from the screenshot, the european funds have grown between 1-5% in the past week (after i initiated the switch), riding pass negativity of rate hikes. I am quite certain the selected funds will do wel in many weeks to come. :)

UT Portfolio as at 04 Mar 07

This week was a humiliating week with Dow sinking more than 400 points in one day; over a stupid rumour from China. From then, all devils broke loose. The whole week was a sea of red across the world. Let's see how much damage was done:




















Profit was cut from $4,400+ to $2,700+ within one week; God knows when this bleeding will stop..... ok, enough of bitching and back to work. :)

This is a healthy correction, especially when it happened early in the year. This will result in a much rosier outlook in the Asian market in the next two quarters. I have just switched Henderson Asia Pacific Property fund and Pru Global Basics fund to Henderson European Property fund and Schroders European Alpha Fund respectively during the turmoil. You would be able to see the changes in the next update.

As you would have realised, i am quite in love with property funds as they have been consistently having good returns for the past few years. Such good returns are due to great selection process by fund managers; chosing baskets of REITs, Commercial properties which have great yielding potential. So why the switch to Europe? Well, their financial markets are very well established and have been consistently produced great results in the past years. And of course, if you have seen the growth of China (due to Olympic 2008), you would forsee similar economic movements for Olympic 2012 in UK. Get the hint?