Who Is Samsan Doss

The Doss family goes into the nooks and crannies of the capital, approaching every homeless person they meet to offer them a new lease on life. They tried to recruit as many homeless people as they could in a single night, hoping to take them off the streets and into the workforce.

Carrying placards with the words ‘kerja kosong’ (job vacancy), husband and wife team Jerryson Abraham Doss and Edna Sung Burongoh, along with their 14-year-old son, Angelus Alexander Doss and Jerryson’s father Samson Doss, 68, tirelessly went from one homeless person to another.

They try to entice the “special crowd” with a job offer that also comes with the promise of a place to stay, a payment well above the minimum wage, and the opportunity to get off the streets. They spent close to four hours, trying to convince the homeless that the family has nothing but good intentions.

This special crowd is a challenge,” said Jerryson, explaining that some of them, having been cheated by previous employers, found it difficult to trust others.Some of them were working as security guards but never got paid for the work they’ve done. After many failed attempts at securing another job, they ended up on the streets but no longer believe that their life can be better than where they are now.

Illegal Real Estate Agents

Illegal brokers made an estimated RM38 billion in property transactions in 2014, eating up almost 40 per cent of the earnings that could have otherwise gone to licensed real estate agents.

The total transacted value of property in 2014 amounted to RM162 billion, RM97 billion of which was transacted by registered real estate agents and illegal brokers. Lately, these unlicensed brokers are marketing their services via social media through web portals, web page applications (apps) and Facebook, often getting away with duping unsuspecting property sellers, buyers, landlords and tenants.

And those who become victims of these bogus agents have no recourse but to lodge police reports. It is believed that for every registered estate agent, there are 20 illegal ones, especially in Sabah and Sarawak. “Illegal brokers are thriving because the public believe they can get better deals from them. “But this is a misconception because firstly, they will undervalue your property as their motivation is to sell.

“Victims will be unable to cover their losses unless they lodge a police report. “On the other hand, if a registered estate agent does this, you can sue for misrepresentation,” said former president of the Malaysian Institute of Estate Agents (MIEA), K. Soma Sundram.

There are 2,400 registered estate agents, 950 real estate firms and 17,500 certified negotiators with tags. Soma Sundram said although there were some certified negotiators who did not adhere to the law, the public could get redress through the Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents (BOVAEA). “Firstly, they are protected by the negotiators’ firm. If the negotiator does something wrong, the firm will protect the client by taking action against the negotiator.

Cheated By Gold Goddess

A group of seven Singaporeans, including their leader Chia Ser Leong, have been charged in Taiwan for marketing impure gold bullion through illegal schemes, which had scammed NT$1.9 billion (S$80 million) out of some 5,000 Taiwanese in two years, reported the island's media.

Also charged on Tuesday were 18 Taiwanese, including a 39-year-old woman named Zeng Shaoli who had used her sex appeal and flashy lifestyle to lure many into becoming franchised sales agents of the bullion, reported Taiwan's China Times and United Daily News (UDN). She was also dubbed the "Golden Goddess" by the media.

The group, which was led by Chia and operated under a Singapore company called Tianjin Group Holdings, was busted in September following complaints by some 200 Taiwanese that they had been tricked into the allegedly illegal multi-level marketing and semi-fake bullion "scam".

The group had touted the bullion it sold as products of the "Swiss PAMP" gold refining company, which would earn investors an impressive 24 per cent profit after two years when the group bought them back, reported UDN. But the group charged NT$2.6 million for each kilogramme of the bullion, which was NT$1.37 million higher than the market rate.

According to the prosecutor's office in Taoyuan city, which is just outside Taipei, the bullion certificates which the group claimed were issued by Swiss PAMP have been found to be fakes.
Also, it was found that 200 pieces of gold bars confiscated were not made of pure gold.

Chaoyang Life Busted

The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday placed Chaoyang Life Insurance Co under government receivership to prevent further deterioration of the company’s financial condition.

“The company has repeatedly failed to carry out its proposed financial improvement measures and its negative net worth continued to worsen on an annual basis. It was NT$2.2 billion [US$65.23 million] in the red as of last month,” Insurance Bureau Director-General Jenny Lee said at a news conference.

Insurers with risk-based capital (RBC) ratios of less than 50 percent might be taken into government control to ensure the interests of customers and employees, she said.
The company is to present a NT$5.05 billion capital increase program before its board of directors tomorrow.

The RBC requirement establishes a minimum liquid reserve that protects a financial institution, its customers and the economy by ensuring that the firm has sufficient capital to sustain possible operating losses.

The commission emphasized that the company would continue its day-to-day operations and all ongoing insurance policies and contract terms would be unaffected by the government takeover.
The company has about 123,000 active policies, 98,000 policyholders, and 600 employees.

It is the third of the nation’s insurers to be put under government receivership in the 18 months after the takeover of Global Life Insurance Co and Singfor Life Insurance Co in August 2014.

Allianz Shines In Thailand

Allianz Ayudhya (Azay) will embrace three of the parent Allianz group’s five strategic initiatives to strengthen its offerings of protection insurance through the agency channel, said Bryan Smith, president and chief executive officer of Azay.

 

Under the policy of new Allianz group chief Oliver Baete, the Germany-based company has laid out five strategies - true customer-centricity, digital by default, technical excellence, growth engines, and inclusive meritocracy.

In Thailand, one of the German firm's four strategic locations in Asia, Azay will embrace true customer-centricity, digital by default and growth engines, Smith said. We will show the importance of protection insurance to Thai people because Thailand is becoming the ageing country," he said.

Moreover, the cost of medical care in Thailand has steadily increased. In 2014, such costs rose by 8.7 per cent from the year before, and outpatient services accounted for up to 40-50 per cent of household health expenses. 

          

Insurance penetration in Thailand is below 30 per cent, but the company believes this will gradually increase, as the country will have to follow the trends of developed markets. This means that protection insurance in Thailand still has room to grow, he said.

Azay considers that true customer-centricity will lead to a perfect storm for protection products, where the company aims to be the market leader by aligning incentives to agents and promoting protection riders to existing customers who have main policies.

As to Allianz' "digital by default" strategy, Smith noted that social media could help broaden the customer base, but digital tools must be easy for customers to understand. Moreover, the company will highlight "digital native agents", allowing customers to submit paperless applications and e-signatures via electronic gadgets such as mobile phones and tablets.

However, in the short term selling insurance via digital channels is not suitable for protection policies, he said, adding that four insurance products including motor and personal-accident policies have been sold via the Internet.

Under the third strategy - growth engines - Thailand, China, Indonesia and India are four strategic countries for Allianz, which means the group is ready to inject investment in those countries.

The group has positioned Thailand as the hub for selling life and non-life insurance in Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. Allianz has licences for both types of insurance in Laos, where Azay aims to increase its collaboration with the parent group soon. At present, company agents in border provinces offer insurance products to Laotians who come to Thailand.

Smith said that as the company focused more on selling protection insurance via agents, premiums per policy could trend downwards.

"We got annual premiums per policy of Bt100,000 from bancassurance, while annual premium per policy from protection products is around Bt22,000. Yet it is our objective to focus on protection insurance even [though] this policy will [result in] lower premiums," he said.

Under the group's policy, subsidiaries could not allowed giving the 2015 result before the group, however, the company can unveil business target for 2016, by targeting first year premiums of Bt6.1 billion and total premiums of Bt61 billion.

Azay targets first-year premium income of Bt6.1 billion and total premium income of Bt61 billion this year. We can say our target in 2016 will [is to] grow more than the market," Smith said.

The company will add 7,800 new agents this year to the existing complement of 13,850 to sell protection insurance. First-year premium income from agents this year is expected to grow by 20.5 per cent from last year.

In the protection-insurance market sold by agents only, Azay commands a 31.5-per-cent share, and this year, the company projects a 33-per-cent share. Still, Smith believes that his company could reach a market share of 35-37 per cent.

Checking On Your Life Agent

The Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) is enabling the members of the public to verify the status of the insurance agents by the short messaging system (SMS) and via the Internet.  LIAM, which has about 85,000 agents registered with it. This move will not only instil professionalism in the agency force but also to help the public check the authenticity of the persons whom they are dealing with.

The association recently introduced public enquiry facilities via Internet and SMS to enable the public to ascertain whether individuals they are dealing with, to purchase life insurance products are registered with LIAM as an authorised agent.

He added the public should ensure the people they are dealing with are registered with LIAM. Only LIAM members are authorised to promote, market and distribute life insurance products in the country. Those keen to be insurance agents have to pass the pre-contract Examination and Certificate of Investment Linked Examination before they can be registered as members.

Agents undergo training and continuing professional development each year to maintain their contracts. In raising the professionalism of the distribution channels, LIAM also introduced examinations and basic agency management course for agents and advocated the code of ethics to inculcate the highest degree of standards and integrity among its practitioners.

The public can call LIAMt at 03-2691616803-26916168, 26916628 and 26918068 or e-mail their enquiry to liaminfo@liam.org.my if they encountered any unauthorised agents promoting, marketing and distributing life insurance products in the market.

Malaysian Not Saving Enough To Retire

High debt and low savings are among the reasons why many Malaysians are unable to retire, a HSBC report has revealed. A whopping 91 per cent of Malaysians aged 45 and over who want to retire in the next five years are unable to do so due to financial constraints, Country Head of Wealth Management Lim Eng Seong said, citing the report.

More than 18,000 people from 17 countries participated in the two-month survey, which represents the views of 1,105 Malaysians. Survey participants also revealed that they were mainly bogged down by inadequate savings, having dependants who relied on their income as well as debts such as housing loans.

They cited accumulating health bills and children’s education fees as the main reasons why many of them could not save enough for retirement, he said at a briefing on the future of retirement here today. 69 per cent of Malaysian pre-retirees aged 45 and over would like to retire within the next five years if circumstances allowed them to, Lim added.

Great Eastern Takaful Roars

Great Eastern Takaful Bhd is targeting double-digit growth in sales this year, driven by products from its agency distribution channel. Its chief executive officer Zafri Halim said the takaful operator achieved sales close to about RM89 million last year and has a sales agency force of about 6,000.

We are planning to launch at least five new products this year with the main products coming from our agency distribution channel,” he told selected members of the media who attended a professional image workshop and training programme yesterday.

Zafri said Great Eastern Takaful is also offering Bancatakaful products through its tie-up with several banks. We are aiming to form more partnerships with financial institutions to expand our bancatakaful products,” he said.

Great Eastern Takaful, Zafri said, also aims to grow its group hospital and surgical business this year to cater to demand from corporate clients, adding the current economic environment has not affected growth in new insurance business.

Zafri said there is still room for growth amid the low takaful penetration rate, with the company focusing on products that meet the different income brackets.

 

We hope 2016 would be a better year with more vibrant business growth, amid a family takaful penetration rate which is still below the market potential,” he said.

Who Is Doctor Vida

Hazmiza Othman (age 44) former schoolteacher, reigning cosmetics queen, and entrepreneur extraordinaire. She is known to the public by her “business name” Dr Vida, with the title Datuk Seri.

The multi-millionaire often dresses in her own style of Muslim attire, usually in pink or some other bright colour which is heavily beaded, and always with a tiara on her head to complement the necklace, bracelets and rings that she wears.

For Dr Vida, to be where she is now was a long and hard road. Starting from selling ‘kacang puti
and nasi bungkus’ to her schoolmates for extra pocket money after her father’s death, she expanded her products to ‘kain batik’, ‘telekung’ (Muslim women’s prayer robe), sambal daging and keropok (crackers) during her university days at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Education (Malay Literature and History), and becoming a teacher at Sekolah SJK (C) Poi Lam, Ipoh, she never stopped looking at business opportunities and took up beauty care namely hairdressing and make-up. With a bank loan of RM100,000, she opened up a beauty saloon.

EPF Contribution - 3% Reduction

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the following measures under Putrajaya's recalibration of Budget 2016

1. EPF contributions by employees to be reduced by 3% (currently 11%) from March this year until December 2017. Contribution rate by employers, however, remains the same. Najib said the reduced contributions would boost spending by an estimated RM8 billion.
2. Tax exemption of RM2,000 for Malaysians earning RM8,000 and below for the financial year of 2015, a move that would affect two million tax payers. -

Management By Intimidation

A manager - proudly announce that he manages his team by intimidation because, he said, it was the only way he could get things done. So, as you can imagine, I gave some considerable thought to the comment. Managing by intimidation is a management strategy for controlling people through the use of direct or implied threats that are dependent upon an individual’s inherent anxiety about his or her job.

Some people are more vulnerable to such threatening behaviour than others and much may depend on individual self-esteem and inner strength that have been either strengthened or weakened by previous personal experiences.

We each carry with us the knowledge or practical wisdom gained from past encounters and observations of how we have managed, or failed to manage, previous uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune. Managing by intimidation is a classic way of invoking fear in the individual concerned and relies on the perpetrator using the psychology of power to invoke, in the subject, a distressing emotion aroused by impending loss, danger or pain. Whether or not the threat is real or imagined, it nevertheless will arouse a condition of apprehension or insecurity.

If you were to ask your employees as to how they would describe the corporate culture within their organisation, would some describe it as intimidating? Or would the majority define it as a culture that encourages all staff and employees, on all levels, to be contributing members of a corporate family that operates for the benefit of everyone within a group that shares common attitudes, interests and goals?

Those who work within a culture that is intimidating will never give of their best. They will be less creative and less committed and overall will feel disempowered with an experience of lost personal self-esteem. Some companies and organisations still operate on a strictly hierarchal, ‘top-down’ system of management that allows no comment or criticism; that accept no suggestion for improvement or modernization from staff, and which, inevitably, eventually leads to falling behind more forward-looking competitors.

Competitive advantage attained through a satisfied, enthusiastic staff is an imperative in today’s fast-moving, commercial world. Intimidation at any level can completely destroy that advantage, over time.

Smart Life Investor

Choose your preferred contact point.

Deal only with agents registered with the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia or Malaysian Takaful Association, approved insurance/takaful brokers, approved financial advisers, bancassurance/bancatakaful staff or directly with insurance companies/takaful operators. Some plans are available online.

Be a smart consumer.
Shop around. The product must meet your needs (type and coverage amount).

Never make “as a favour” purchases. Know what you’re buying.

Compare the premium/contribution payable and the level of cover. Prices may differ due to differences in coverage. Understand the differences so that you can compare and make an informed decision.

Ensure that a copy of the product disclosure sheet is given before making a purchase. The sheet contains key features of the product, premium/contribution payable, key terms and conditions, major exclusions under the policy/certificate and important notices on the product.

Ask if unclear.

Read the fine print.
Answer all questions in the proposal/application form accurately. Don’t sign a blank proposal form and allow the intermediary to complete the information. If the answer given is inaccurate, your claim may be rejected or not fully paid out, the terms of the policy may be changed, or the policy may be terminated.

Read your policy/certificate when you receive it from the insurance company/takaful operator. For life insurance/family takaful and medical and health insurance/takaful products, you have 15 days to return the policy/certificate. A refund (less expenses incurred for the medical examination) will be given.

Know what’s covered and what’s not. Watch out for benefit limitations and exclusion clauses, premium/contribution amount (including future revision of premiums/contributions), risks associated with the product, policy terms and conditions, and period of coverage.

Consider your current salary when determining how much coverage you should get.
The primary purpose of life insurance is to make sure your dependents are able to maintain their current lifestyle after you are gone.

If you have young children and a significant amount of liabilities, you should have more coverage compared with someone who doesn’t have much debt and whose spouse is working.

Ensure that the premium/contribution payable is affordable throughout the duration of the policy, including any future increase.

Review your coverage at least once a year as needs and priorities change. This ensures that you’re always adequately insured.

Malaysian Cannot Afford To Retire

Many Malaysian job applicants found difficulty in getting hired because they lacked proficiency in English. Statistics from the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) that about 200,000 graduates in the country were unemployed, with poor command of the English language as one of the main reasons.

On another matter, he said Malaysia was heading towards becoming an aged nation by 2030 and yet 67% or 4.46 million active contributors to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) had not achieved basic saving requirement.

Citing EPF statistics, he said contributors were estimated to need a minimum savings of RM820 per month for 20 years, which would come up to RM196,800 in their old age.

It is unlikely that this target is achievable given the high cost of living and the indirect taxes to which the people are being subjected to today. The problem is acute as the young population, which was 31.5% in 2005, is expected to dip to 17.7% in 2030 and further reduced to 13.5% by 2050.

In contrast, the population, aged 60 and above, is expected to increase from 6.7% in 2005 to 15.5% in 2030 and 25.7% by 2050. It is believed that half of ex-EPF members exhaust their EPF savings in five years, creating the spectacle of old-age penury.
 

Importing Tuberculosis Into Malaysia

Malaysia is expected to reach the ageing population status by 2035, where 15 per cent of its total population will be 60 years and older, posing a huge socio-economic and health problem for Malaysia.

This is because this group is economically unproductive and lacks the financial means to lead a simple and decent lifestyle. Malaysian National Population and Family Development Board estimated that more than 500,000 of the 2.4 million senior citizens suffered from the "empty nest syndrome", while 90 per cent of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) contributors could not sustain beyond five years after retirement.

EPF statistics, in 2014 almost 75 per cent of its contributors earned less than RM2,000 per month. The wage depression was partly due to the influx of foreign workers. As at December 2014, there were 6.7 million foreign workers in Malaysia with only 2.2 million legally registered.

The other concern for the country was that the foreigners were bringing in communicable diseases. For example, in 2014, Fomema--the company responsible for medical screening of foreign workers--reported that it detected 24,000 cases of TB.

Out of the 1.27 million legal workers screened for health showed that 3 to 3.5 per cent had TB, and we do not have the health statistics on the 4.2 million undocumented foreigner workers.

EPF Contribution Reduced

Employees may soon be able to reduce their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) contributions whereas employers may be allowed to withhold their employees' Social Security Organisation (Socso) contributions as well as their Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF) levy for a specific period.

These are some of the measures expected to be put in place under the Budget 2016 revision to be announced tomorrow.

The government will take steps to boost its revenue and enhance liquidity in revising the budget. One measure to enhance liquidity, which was taken during the last economic crisis, is to allow employees to reduce their EPF contribution. This time around, a reduction of 2% is to be expected.


At present, the minimum contribution by employees and employers is set at 11% and 13% respectively. During the 2008 world economic crisis, the government allowed employees to reduce their contributions but the response was lukewarm. Currently, employees have the option to contribute more than 11% of their salary.

According to the report, the government is also looking at allowing employers to temporarily suspend the submission of employees' Socso contributions.

The above measures can boost individuals' and companies' disposal incomes, thus boosting liquidity.
To further enhance company cashflow, the government may also allow employers' to stop paying HRDF as well as CIDB (Construction Industry Development Board) levies until the economy improves.