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One of the perks of being a financial writer at DollarsAndSense is that I get to attend many personal finance events in Singapore. While some are held regularly each year, a few, like InsureXpo 2024, are being held for the first time. Held on March 2 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre, the inaugural InsureXpo 2024 was organised by CIMB Bank in partnership with major insurers such as AIA, Singlife, Manulife, Income Insurance, and Tokio Marine. The event was intended to help individuals prepare for their financial independence and build wealth at every stage of their lives. It featured financial experts and popular content creators like The Weeblings and Ruiming of The Woke Salaryman (TWS). A hallmark of such events are the insights that you can glean from the talks presented by the speakers. With over 8 segments, including fireside chats and panel discussions, there was something for everyone—young and old—in the audience to learn and think about. Here are some of the key points shared at InsureXpo 2024 if you missed out: One central theme expressed by the speakers at InsureXpo was to start investing early. Renita, Head of Bancassurance Partnership & Sales, Group Distribution at Singlife, shared why we should use the power of compound interest—coined as the 8 wonder of the world by Albert Einstein—to grow our wealth. She gave an illustration of how a $6,000 investment compounded at a 7% rate of return could grow to over $89,000 in 40 years without additional investments. In contrast, an investment at a simple interest rate would have only generated slightly over $22,000 over the same period. The example also showed that we do not always need to have a large amount of capital to start. Instead, the longer we stay invested, the more powerful the compounding effect will be on our portfolio as it grows to a sizeable amount. While some of us may rue not starting investing early, like the Weelings mentioned, it’s never too late to start now. During the panel discussion, a question was asked about how to ensure an insurance plan can hedge an inflation rate of 5% over time. Answering it, Mun Hoe, Head of Alternative Distribution, Bancassurance of Manulife Singapore, mentioned that investors should look at portfolio returns in their entirety. For instance, if the portfolio generates a higher rate of return for its asset classes at a total rate of return above 5%, it should then be able to hedge inflation risk. Often, we make the mistake of leveraging a single asset class to deliver the expected return on our portfolio, which could be detrimental if it underperforms during certain stages in the economic cycle. It’s important to understand that different asset classes have different returns. Therefore, we should be looking at it from a total wealth portfolio standpoint, consisting of various asset classes, with consideration of the weighted rate of return. This point of diversifying across various asset classes was further emphasised by the personal sharing of both the Weeblings and Ruiming, who recounted how they had lost all the money they invested in cryptocurrencies. For the Weeblings, they lost their money on the crypto exchange – FTX – where they kept their funds when bust, while for Ruiming, it was the cryptocurrency – Anchor Protocol – that lost all its value. Fortunately, as they only allocated around 2-5% of their overall portfolio towards this one asset class, they did not lose their entire investment capital. This reinforces the importance of diversifying our portfolio into different asset classes and not simply across more instruments within a single asset class.   Many of us coming to an investment seminar would assume that we could receive tips from the speakers or piggyback their investment choices that could multiply our investments by at least two or more folds. As such, it came as a surprise when Ruiming mentioned that his earned income contributed more to his financial independence (FI) than his investments. He shared that many of us may work normal jobs but expect to 10x or 100x our investments – which rarely happens. He emphasised that even the people who are employed to invest may not necessarily achieve consistently high rates of return on their investments. He encouraged those aiming for early retirement to work on their earning potential, as there is no replacement for it. This, he claims, means stepping out of our comfort zone and learning new skills, like public speaking, which Ruimin himself learned over time by overcoming his reserved personality. While many of us may carefully plan for our children’s education and our own retirement savings, we may not place an equal emphasis on planning for our elderhood. This often-neglected phase of our lives is just as important as our earlier milestones, especially with our high life expectancy, in order to live a more dignified life in our golden years. According to Regina, CEO of Immortalize, elderhood planning involves 3 areas: – refers to Will, Lasting Power of Attorney, Advance Care Plan, and other legal and medical documents and tools. These documents can help us know what will happen to our assets when we pass away or lose our mental capacity. – refers to retirement experiences, retirement homes and other ideas to enrich our retirement life. In addition to financial planning, we should also consider how we intend to engage ourselves in meaningful activities during our retirement years. Some unconventional retirement experiences cited by Regina were getting a recreational private pilot licence (from Australia), playing eGames, fishkeeping, or Bonsai appreciation classes. – refers to tech gadgets for the elderly, like smart walking sticks, elderly daycare centres and other things that help you age better. Unlike most personal finance events, where the activities are limited to only talks, the audience at InsureXpo were treated to a host of fun games at the partner booths. Participants were also given a redemption card to collect stamps as they go through each of the partner booths. AIA – Play a game and answer quiz questions to win a mini speaker. CIMB – calculate credit card cashback to win Old Chang Kee vouchers. Manulife – Spin to Win (or answer a trivia question) to win one of three prizes: notebook, umbrella, or a trolley coin. Singlife – create a bouquet of flowers. Tokio Marine – measure your anti-oxidant level and receive a Kagome vegetable and fruit juice. By the end of the event, I managed to collect all 9 stamps and was rewarded with a $10 Takashimaya voucher. Together with all the other gifts that I collected, it was a rather good haul for the time spent at InsureXpo. InsureXpo redemption card As an icing on the cake, participants were served sumptuous food for breakfast, lunch, and teatime. Lunch served at InsureXpo There was plenty of food catering to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians. I even got to try some new dishes, like the sauteed butter gnocchi chicken ragout along with the other more familiar dishes. Vegetarian rolls served during lunch Lunch desserts To top it off, participants at the InsureXpo were not only given the chance to win attractive lucky draw prizes worth over $20,000 that were held throughout the day, but everyone also got to walk away with a gift bag worth $100. CIMB Goodie bag If you did not attend this content and fun-filled event this year, fret not, you can for the next one.