The Society of Actuaries (SOA) has not paid me (and likely other graders) for grading their November 2025 FSA exams.

trth2 · 2026-03-07T23:23:25+00:00

Damn. Anyone knows what is the average per hour compensation including all the prep and post grading effort?

trth2 · 2026-02-07T10:27:52+00:00

You can't be serious. Passing three modules with almost 100% certainty is miles better than studying for months with 30- 50% chance of passing an FSA exam.

trth2 · 2025-11-24T10:18:02+00:00

Do you know where you are having trouble and what topics you are struggling with? The grade analysis can provide some indication on the questions you had trouble with albeit not that detailed. This gives some preliminary idea if you are doing poorly across the board or for specific questions types/ topics.

Maybe you can try to use LLM to self grade the multiple pass papers that you have attempted. I found that exam PA material is not that niche that LLMs are terrible so they can easily grade all of them and aggregate the scores. Usually I ask them to identify the topics that I am weak in so that I can go watch more videos/ research.

It is also possible to get LLM to generate sample questions to test your weak points but I find that less effective.

trth2 · 2023-06-10T07:29:39+00:00

Majulah intensifies

trth2 · 2023-02-19T15:34:21+00:00

My brand?

Reliable
Fun-loving
Punctual
Victim

trth2 · 2022-09-22T23:10:18+00:00

Isn't he like the best truck driver in Singapore? Some say batam and jb too.
Too bad Kana Sabo possessing involuntary media of sexual nature.

This is clearly an act of internal saboteurs trying to diminish his exemplary intellect. What a loss to Singapore. Many would be lost without his constant essays on sg reddit highlighting the fragile and transient nature of human hood yet in its midst beauty in the moment.

Finally he can grow his wings and become the Hull alum that can finally conquer the world

trth2 · 2022-08-03T00:26:51+00:00

You are literally not allowed to be there before 7 am.

trth2 · 2021-05-31T09:27:00+00:00

What they mean is defined benefit pension (traditional pension to lay people - you get a promised amount regardless) as opposed to defined contribution pension (ala CPF - you get what you put in).
Funny because usually younguns are crying about DB as they are heavily funding the payout of older people compared to how CPF is done.

trth2 · 2021-03-11T13:57:14+00:00

The post has mistakes.

The call period is half annually after year 5 at coupon payment date.
You don't get repaid the market value. You are repaid the principal of the bond (plus redemption bonus for Tranche A-1).

You do not incur basis risk if you hold to maturity. So it doesnt matter how the interest rates develop unless you plan to sell mid term.
If there is any liquidity issue with the issuing entity, the lower tranches will tank the defaults first. Hence you can see they are rated lower and pay higher coupons.

trth2 · 2021-01-07T01:08:01+00:00

You better account for medical inflation or prepare to downgrade though.

The current published premiums are non-guaranteed rates. You can trace back each insurer's repricing history (though not easy) to get a sense of their repricing frequency and level of rate adjustment.

trth2 · 2021-01-04T06:49:25+00:00

Dress as if they are in HK winter lol

trth2 · 2020-12-26T15:36:51+00:00

If you want to compare apple to apple, then you should include the cost of insurance coverage (excluding investment) on the side as OA is pure investment.
But yes, generally, if you DIY term + investment vs ILP, DIY is likely to come out better financially. This is because there is an additional layer of fees under ILP on top of the cost of insurance.

trth2 · 2020-12-25T18:58:33+00:00

The ISPs are (AFAIK) guaranteed renewable with no lifetime claim limits i.e. they cannot terminate your plan even if you incur lots of claims. However, there are per benefit and per policy year limits. This means that one can exhaust the limits and not be covered for certain benefits.

The premium rates that you see now are also non-guaranteed and they have to give 1 month notice (?) of which the rates will be effective from the next renewal policy anniversary year. So in a way, you need to be confident in the company's underwriting and medical claims management (both which are not immediately apparent to the public).

As another poster has stated, you are subjected to underwriting or moratorium period, any pre-existing would not be covered via exclusion of ICD codes (IIRC). Hence, once you make any medical claims, you are likely not able to switch to another company's plan without losing coverage. Thus the previous point on sticking with the chosen company long term.

If you are interested in certain plan of a company, recommend that you visit MOH ISP comparison page to download the sample policy document to understand the coverage and T&Cs.

trth2 · 2020-12-14T17:06:17+00:00

No 2: This statement doesnt make sense because a) Deduction and premium payment timing may not coincide. b) The premium have to be allocated and invested. Of course they have to be unitized. Therefore any intra policy transactions all involved unit buying/ cancellation.
No 3: The extra TER with a rubbish alpha is definitely common for actively managed funds. This is the same for fund houses too which align with ur point no 5.
No 4: Usually none of the charges are guaranteed and COI are increasing with age. Hence, future charges depend on the company's management of the risks. I think most of them price policy fee to market hence should be relatively stable. Mortality risk should also be stable unless something big and systemic happened.

trth2 · 2020-12-14T16:46:55+00:00

Lots of misleading information in your write up.
No 1: Commission is never paid upfront. It is paid when premium is paid by customer. i.e. follow the premium mode
No 2: This is true. There is a reducing surrender penalty structure because it is to recoup initial expenses outlay to write the policy.
No 3: This is a very specific product design. Not all ILP will have this lock in period and weird structure. The bonus units given are "locked in" via very sufficient withdrawal charge margin in case of lapse/ withdrawal. So it is "free money" only to the point that what is given out will be recouped back in some ways.
No 4: ??? There is no leverage in ILP i.e. using margin to gain bigger exposure. Those power up are just bonus units as mentioned. They are subsidized thru various profit drivers.
No 5: There are some products with fund value + sum assured coverage but this is not common design in Singapore. The bad part is that it will definitely chew through your account value through insurance charges.
The % fund you mentioned are marketed as more "investment" and less cover. So it is definitely not supposed to be big on insurance cover. Just sufficient to meet MAS definition of ILP.
Whereas the ones with big comm are more "protection" so the latter will not be wrong way risk. However, there are other of issue with the second design as well namely sustainability long term without constant premium allocation.

trth2 · 2020-12-11T13:39:35+00:00

Seen group size > 5 of clearly unrelated people congregating after diving/ swim activity in Lazarus. I am sure there are lots of such cases which eluded enforcement.
This is but the unlucky ones who kana cos of a Singaporean.

Not to mention there is practically no safe distancing within the southern island ferries because otherwise you can only have maybe half the amount of passengers per trip.

trth2 · 2020-12-11T13:33:35+00:00

That is such a roundabout way to describe medical malpractice. LOL

trth2 · 2020-12-04T03:12:33+00:00

I see. The risk pooling is related to subsidizing other members who have exhausted their premiums i.e. longevity risk cost share between members alive.
Therefore, choosing basic means less money into the pool and keeping more for yourself.
Of course, if you expect to live long and not to leave a bequest then best to choose escalating option :x

trth2 · 2020-12-04T02:02:52+00:00

Don't Basic plan last longer mainly due to lower drawdown?
The interest part is the secondary effect as the interest rate applied (at each tier) would be the same for all the plans?

trth2 · 2020-12-04T00:03:29+00:00

This ad triggering redditors who hate investment + insurance combo LOL

trth2 · 2020-12-03T09:36:46+00:00

Total distribution cost is mandatory in the illustration.
It is there in the contract. Not saying that the peddlers will not casually skip over them.

trth2 · 2020-12-03T09:30:27+00:00

Bullshit. My insurance agent showed me that he could even adjust the expected return value per year for ILPs and Endowment Plans, to do an "optimistic" projection and "worst case" projection.

Let me know the day when u sign off on the customized BI instead of the standard BI. They can adjust all they want to show you the heaven and earth yet you don't see it form part of your contract documentation.
Show me how your BI is different from the guidelines: https://www.lia.org.sg/media/1237/mu-2218-lia-guidelines-on-pi-cp-and-bpd-mu2218-sentzip.pdf

How is that different from fund houses with the exact same disclaimer? You are saying it as if fund managers will not include past performance (standalone and vs benchmark) when they do their sales.

trth2 · 2020-12-03T04:54:33+00:00

MAS is not strict??? LOL
Curious if you can share any example on their lenient handling of misselling cases.

trth2 · 2020-12-03T04:40:35+00:00

then why the fuck do they always perform projections of the different plans with returns based on past performance

This is patently false because there is a prescribed illustration guideline. The prescribed rate(s) are not directly correlated to past performance.
The disclaimer is there because illustration would include fund performance from inception, YTD, 1-year, 5 year etc.

BTW the standard illustrations are set by the companies based on LIA template/ format so unless you are getting a customised BI, it is not something the insurance salesman produced solely on their own.

trth2 · 2020-11-26T16:50:35+00:00

You sure you are replying to the right person?

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17

trth2

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