HoneycombFC 2.0 | Blog

Basically, if we Filipinos learn to understand and harness the magic of insurance, rebuilding would be a little bit more easier. 

Pioneer, one of Honeycomb's financial instrument provider, has HomeMaster under it's Non-life insurance arm. I will not be explaining in full detail all the benefits but here are some that could have addressed the situation of those greatly affected by Yolanda and other calamities or "acts of God".

HomeMaster benefits:

• Protection against the following perils: 
• fire and lightning
• smoke
• vehicle impact
• explosion
• falling aircraft
• burglary or robbery
• bursting and/or overflowing of water tanks and pipes
• earthquakes* (at insured's option)
• typhoon* (at insured's option)
• flood* (at insured's option)

• Coverage for Valuable Items
• Aside from insuring the building, it's improvements, and the standard household contents, you can also secure coverage for declared valuable items such as jewelry, fine art and antiques.

• Protection for Your Living Standards
• When the property you occupy becomes uninhabitable due to damages caused by any of the insured perils, HomeMaster will reimburse you for any necessary increase in your living expenses should you need to move in to a temporary residence. This provides you and your family financial assistance to keep on living comfortably.

There are a few more benefits of this particular package but a summary of the benefits are:

• Have the resources to rebuild your home and all its amenities.
• Have the most comprehensive cover for your residence to include perils that may not be covered by  standard home insurance.
• Cover for your medical expenses should any of your loved ones get into an accident.
• Provide financial assistance should an accident result in a family member's disablement or death.
• Protect you from any legal liability should you cause bodily injury or property damage to any third party.
• Enjoy savings on your premiums and convenience as you get Personal Accident, Property and Liability insurance in one package.

What's done is done. Now is not the time to regret what should have been done cause we can't do anything about what has happened. But for those who are concerned of the same thing, of protecting one's major assets and you're wondering how you can protect yourself from these kind of calamities, INSURANCE is the key.

We can't keep on relying on outside help to rebuild our lives. There are ways to minimize our exposure to the damages of these kind of calamities. Unfortunately, majority of the population have no idea of what's available out there.

As they say, "Nobody plans to fail, they just fail to plan." 

So, let's all learn the lesson here. There are ways to manage these risks, it's a matter of asking the right people how. We can help you protect your biggest investment. You may reach us via admin@honeycombfc.com or reach us on Facebook.

I have read an article years back showing the tuition fee rates of the top schools in Manila. However, for somebody living in Cebu City and have no plans of sending my son to Manila, I decided to do my own to get an idea of the situation in my very own city.

Note: This research isn't rocket science. CHED and DepEd wouldn't give us access to the latest rates with their respective reasons. We respect it but still we needed to get the data, and so we had to go from one school to another. Some rates were given by working students, some would only give the rates for my "imaginary" incoming students. The gathered data where then tabulated. The averages and medians were computed. So, the rates that you'll be seeing are just a guide as to the average tuition fee rates of the different levels in the schools. We do not guarantee 100% accuracy on the data gathered. The rates that you see are inclusive of dictated miscellaneous fees. For those who gave us purely tuition fees, we added 15% on top of it to take into consideration the miscellaneous fees. 

As you can see, the average tuition fee increase from the schools listed is at 10%. But I saw an article dated last year that listed more schools here in Cebu, and the average increase was at 12%. (Article here.)

Since April, I have read several posts of mothers being shocked of the tuition fee rates in the schools that they're eyeing on for their child. Well, if they're surprised of the tuition fee rates TODAY, how much more in high school? In college?!

To give you a visual presentation of a 6-year old's tuition fee based on the current average tuition fees (elementary - P46,779, high school - P55,793 and college P72,011) vs the average budget for education of a P50,000 and P100,000 combined family income. Education budget allocation is based on NSO study on family expenditures in 2009.

From these two charts, for a couple with a combined take-home pay (net of taxes and other deductions) of P50,000, they would have a hard time sending their child to school based on the average tuition fee rates. Even if their annual income would increase by 6% per year. 

For a P100,000 take home pay (maybe an OFW's case perhaps?), yes, sending their child to really good private schools is doable in the first few years but by the time the child will reach Grade 7 until college, at an average tuition fee increase of 10% per year, the couple would now have to consider increasing the budget allocated for education OR find additional source of income to compensate the need.

Now, that's based on the AVERAGE tuition fee rates. How about if the couple would just go for the minimum tuition fee rate based on the study? Well, here's a chart for that. 

From these 2 charts, it shows that for the P50,000 pay couple, the challenge of paying off for the tuition fee starts at the 2nd grade of the 1st born, and even until the eldest graduates from college.

However, the P100,000 pay couple will be financially struggling by the time the eldest is in senior high school until the child graduates from college. They would be able to take a breather when the 1st child graduates.

Now, these scenarios are good for 1 or 2 kids.. If you would like to have an idea of how much your child's tuition fee based on your school picks, you may use this widget we created based on the data shown above.




Or you may also reach us at hannah@honeycombfc.com or landline (032) 381-0188 for help on creating a financial plan and how to create an education fund.

So, if our gov't would have to borrow money, either from it's people or some foreign entity, the rate that they'll be borrowing will be lower to what we're experiencing right now. Now, what are these gov't debts? From my understanding (If an economist reads this, please correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding. Again, this is based on my non-economist side.) sample instruments of gov't debts are T-bills and RoP Bonds.

If you're somebody who plans to buy more bonds, placing money in TDs (time deposits) or SDAs (special deposit accounts) then this will be bad news for you... Well, good news for our gov't but bad news for the one lending there money to. Why? SDA and TD rates are close enough to T-bills and RoP Bond rates. They're pegged at that rate just enough to beat the inflation. But sometimes, inflation outpaces them. Here's a graph to show you how it looks like.

Just now, I saw an article stating that the T-bill rates has dropped to its all time low.

More affordable loans.

Cheaper funds for company expansions; More investments in factories and open offices, more jobs.

Money Value Calculator Exercise:

Now, if you've been placing money in the bank or plan to park money in the bank with the intent to grow it, I encourage you to do this exercise with me.

Since 2001, the average inflation is at 4.28%. So for inflation rate purposes, we'll just use 4% (or 0.04). Now, for this exercise I decided to benchmark on the rates of the bank I'm using, BPI, Bank of the Philippine Islands*. As per their site, the highest TD rate is at 1.5% (or 0.015) good for 364 days. But you need to  put in at least 5 million pesos.

Using the calculator below, how much do you think you've grown your money? Has it really grown?



Note: In order for the calculator to work as expected, use the decimal form of interests.

(For the sake of those who are not into numbers:

 i.e. 0.1%/100  = 0.001
       1%/100    = 0.01
       10%/100  = 0.1)


Well, your passbook might show a gross growth of P75,000 (called as the nominal value) after a year of parking P5,000,000 in TD, but in reality, after considering inflation, you've lost P125,000 worth of goods since you were not able to grow your P5,000,000 in the same rate as inflation. The real value of your P5,000,000 after 1 year should be at P5,200,000 in order for you to purchase the same amount of goods prior to parking your money.

How does this calculator work?  It will help you to compute by how much you've grown the purchasing power of your investment. If the result shows a positive result, then you've increased the amount of goods purchased by that amount. However, if the result is a negative number, then you've lost that amount of goods to inflation. Ergo, you lost money to inflation.

Now, you try it! Here's a site where you can check the different rates of different banks in the Philippines, http://philippines.deposits.org/. And tell me if you've grown your money or you lost money to inflation.

Whatever the result is, whether it's a positive one or a negative one, feel free to comment and I'll give a little token of appreciation. :)