Jerome Bitun

I know I just sent you a newsletter a few days ago. I apologize if I’m sending you another one so soon but I believe this is too important not to share. In the last two years, the life insurance industry has been completely turned on its head. With record low interest rates and changes in international accounting standards, insurance companies are being forced to change the way they do business. Let me give you some background. Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, the government has been lowering interest rates to help keep the economy going. While lower interest rates are good for borrowers, it can be devastating to savers and investors who need higher interest rates to earn their income. This has been the case for financial companies like insurance companies. Insurance companies earn their income from several sources. Premiums and investment return from their reserves. Premiums alone are not sufficient to provide earnings for the insurance companies, premiums are a ...

I saw this video recently about critical illness insurance and how it helped one family.

We all like to be remembered in one way or another. Sometimes we want to be remembered by our community, sometimes by our industry. Sometimes we wish that even just our family would remember us. How would you like to be remembered by your grandchildren forever? Before I give you an idea how, let me prove a point. Get a piece of paper and draw four lines on the top half and draw eight lines on the bottom half. On the four lines on top, write down the name of your grandparents, first name and last name, on your mother’s side and your father’s side. Most likely, only half of you would remember the full name of your grandparents. Now, on the eight lines at the bottom, write down the first name and last name of your eight great-grandparents. Rarely do we meet someone who can write the full name of their great grandparents. Interesting isn’t it? So how come John D. Rockefeller’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids can remember his first and last name and you don...

It's been two months since I wrote something here. I must admit, writing is sometimes hard. Not that I don't have anything to write about, but more like I thought of something to write while walking/driving/showering but I forget to write it down immediately and when I'm ready to write, I forgot what I was going to write about. Anyway, I wasn't able to write anything last month because I was on vacation for three weeks. I went to the Philippines and Hong Kong as we usually do. I'm telling you this because it has something to do with what I am writing about today. As I usually do whenever I go somewhere, I like to observe everything. I not only try to enjoy the sights and the place, but I always try to look at the town or country from an economics point of view. I know, I'm weird that way. For my clients who are from the Philippines, here is what I observed. Philippines Compared to when I was in the Philippines back around 2009, when Gloria Arroyo was s...

Starting January 2012, there will be changes made to the Canada Pension Plan or CPP. Here are the changes according to Service Canada 's website. These changes will affect you if you are: an employee who contributes to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), whether you are just starting your career or you are planning to retire soon; a self-employed person who contributes to the CPP; between the ages of 60 and 70 and you work while receiving your CPP retirement pension (or if you work outside of Quebec while receiving a Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) retirement pension); or an employer who contributes to the CPP on behalf of your employees. You will not be affected by these changes if you started receiving a CPP retirement pension before December 31, 2010, and you remain out of the work force. The CPP operates throughout Canada, except in Quebec, where the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) provides benefits. These changes do not  apply to the QPP. For information about the QPP, visit the Q...

So the US debt deal has been passed and was presented to Obama a few hours before the deadline which Obama signed. The deal increases the US debt limit immediately by $400B and another $500B by February. This avoids a default by the US government. Part of the debt deal is to cut the US deficit by at least $2.1 trillion over 10 years. If you divide that, it's around $200B a year. To put that amount in context, in 2010, the interest alone paid by the US on its debt is $164B. The Department of Defense budget in 2010 is $663.7B. In short, the spending cuts are insignificant. Here's the sad part, the budget cut is not really a cut in spending. According to Presidential hopeful Ron Paul , the budget cut is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. I know a lot of people are confused ...

I've been talking to a lot of my clients about education savings lately that I thought I should write some information about the cost of education. First let's look at education cost. How much does it cost? The average cost of University education in BC is around $4,300 a year. Here's a list of average cost of Universities around BC for 2010/2011 from the Province of British Columbia website. I also found this calculator from the University of British Columbia to estimate the cost of going to UBC. Including books and student fees, it currently cost around $7,200 a year for a science major. It's cheaper as a Fine Arts major at $6,500. Engineering major is around $8,500. But a law major would need $13,100 a year and to be a doctor will cost almost $20,000 a year. Luckily for British Columbians, tuition fee increases has been limited to just 2% per year which is pretty manageable for most families. Whether this trend continues in the future, we'll have to...