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Download The App That Can Keep All Your Insurance Policies In 1 Place

Insurance is a safeguard against unfortunate and unforeseen events. It is a strategic way to manage various risks. Insurance companies offer individuals or policyholders protection from potential losses in exchange of payments called premiums.

To manage your policy letters better, insurance companies offered their own apps. It sounds like a great idea for people who possess a couple of policies from different insurance companies. However, it is quite a chore for people who hold several policy documents. That is when PolicyPal comes in.

PolicyPal, developed when a startup took part in the Startupbootcamp FinTech Singapore, is a versatile platform that gathers all the policy documents from a wide array of insurers. It provides you with a “digital overview and analysis of your existing policies to identify any protection gap in your insurance portfolio and help you to better understand your coverage.”

Image Credits: facebook.com/hipolicypal

HOW IT STARTED

Ms. Valenzia Yap is the brainchild behind PolicyPal. About two years ago, Valenzia’s mother was diagnosed with a serious illness. Her mother was diagnosed with one of the most notorious illnesses across the globe – CANCER. The unfortunate turn of events did not stop there. She was surprisingly rejected by the insurance company because of several lapses that they were not aware of.

The inconvenience that she went through while sorting out her mother’s policy letters gave her an idea to digitize the collation of the insurance policies and other documents. So, Valenzia collaborated with two programmers named Rick Wong and Jun Wei Ng to create the PolicyPal. Necessity was truly the mother of invention this time around.

ITS CURRENT SITUATION

This impressive app received over a thousand of users since its launch. Majority of these users are either on their late 20s or early 30s. Interestingly, their policies range from 1 to 12. These information simply shows how a significant number of Singaporeans are conscious about their health and safety choices.

THE EASY PROCESS

In simpler terms, PolicyPal follows these steps:

1. Capture an image of your policy’s first page.
2. Taking a snap of the second page is only necessary if you have riders.
3. Wait for the app to process your data. It will analyze the policy number, premiums, coverage, and expiration dates.
4. View your premiums and coverage in a graphical overview or a comprehensive chart.
5. Request for a review.
6. Get a free portfolio review to understand your coverage its gaps.
7. Purchase from the available policies if necessary.

Image Credits: facebook.com/hipolicypal

Eager to get your very own PolicyPal app, visit policypal.co to download it for FREE!

MORE FINTECH APPS

There are other incredible financial technology startups that originated from the Lion City aside from PolicyPal. These startups came up with smartphone apps that make financial services more efficient, convenient, and prompt. They challenge the traditional businesses that are less reliant on the potency of software.

Do yourself a favor and know more about the Call Levels (i.e., providing live updates for traders and investors), the TradeHero (i.e., gamifies trading), and the Dragon Wealth app (i.e., one-stop shop for financial advisors)!

Source: 1 & 2

3 Simple Tips To Stop Living From Paycheck to Paycheck

Living barely within your income is not a laughing matter. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, you live a life of constant stress, worry, and dread that you might be stuck in an unfortunate debt. It is a struggle to gain control of your money and your commitments. So, here are 3 Simple Tips To Stop Living From Paycheck to Paycheck…

1. CREATE A SYSTEMATIC FINANCIAL OPERATING SYSTEM

In order to cease your worries, a huge turnover can be money flow management. You must give conscious effort to know about where your money flows in and out. Once you have control over your money flow. Then, you will be able to create a systematic financial operating system that consists of: money flow management and budgeting.

Money flow management is accomplished by using a ledger or an app. There are a couple of efficient yet free apps that can help such as: EXPENSIFY, EXPENSE MANAGER, MONEYWISE, POCKET EXPENSE PERSONAL FINANCE, and MINT.

Image Credits: wikihow.com/Do-Envelope-Budgeting

Likewise there are a couple of budgeting such as STATIC or FLEXIBLE budgeting. For personal finances, I highly recommend a simple technique called ENVELOPE budgeting. It starts by storing the cash into separate categories of household expenses that are allocated in separate envelopes.

Budgeting will surely help you gain clarity and control. Start by writing down your monthly income, followed by your monthly expenses, and then subtract the two. Plan and search for a suited technique.

2. PREPARE MONEY FOR YOUR BILLS ACCORDINGLY

Some bills are due frequently while some are semi-annually. Prepare money for your bills accordingly by noting them down. If you have a monthly bill, you may try a trick called half payments. For half payments, you prepare the payment for the bill by subtracting half of the bill’s amount to your bank account per two weeks (bi-weekly).

3. BOOST YOUR EMERGENCY FUND

Prepare for the unforeseen events and financial failures by saving at least 8% of your income per month. You shall call this category your “emergency fund”. It is better to save a certain amount of money than to have nothing save at all.

Free and Fun Health and Fitness Apps

Everyone knows that keeping fit and healthy isn’t exactly the most fun thing in the world (unless you’re one of the minority of us that truly enjoys torturing yourself exercising in Singapore’s excessively hot climate – in which case, you definitely have more willpower than me). It can be very difficult for most of us to just get our butts off the couch and do something about our fitness. Thankfully, app makers have noticed this, and have tried to make apps more fun to motivate us to exercise. Most of these apps involve some sort of “cute” element, social/competitive element, gaming elements, or just try to make being healthy easier. Hopefully with all of these new apps, your new year’s resolution of being fit and healthy will be easier to achieve!

1. Plant Nanny

Free
Available for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone

Water occupies 70% of our body weight, and yet water is something that we might not get enough of each day. Everyone knows that we’re supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day, but how many of us actually remember to do so? Now you can track how much water you’re drinking with the adorable Plant Nanny app! Plant Nanny calculates how much water you need to drink per day according to your weight and activity level. As you drink, your adorable little plant gets watered as well, growing from a little sapling to an adult plant! Easily input how much water you’re drinking, with the type of cup you’re using as well as the ml, and never forget to drink again with Plant Nanny’s reminders. With many different cartoon plants to choose from, you’ll never be bored of drinking water!

2. SleepBot

(Image credit: prmac.com)

Free
Available for iPhone and Android

In busy Singapore, it almost doesn’t matter if you’re a student or working professional – you’re bound to not be getting enough sleep. Here comes SleepBot to the rescue! SleepBot is a Smart Alarm with Motion & Sound Tracker to track your sleeping patterns. SleepBot logs your sleep for you, and lets you know if you’re getting the quality sleep time your body needs. You may be waking up many times in the night or having a fitful sleep without even knowing, but SleepBot through its motion and sound tracking, will allow you to find out. SleepBot also tracks your sleep debt, so you know exactly how much you have to catch up on. With its handy charts, logging your sleep patterns is a piece of cake. Simply plug it in, and fall asleep.

3. Nexercise and/or Fitocracy

(Image credit: www.arizonafoothillsmagazine.com)

Nexercise: Free
Available for iPhone (Challenges by Nexercise) and Android (NexTrack)
Fitocracy: Free
Available for iPhone and Android

The cool thing about both of these apps is that they essentially make fitness a game. Not a 1-player game either, but a game you can play with your friends. Choose from the many workouts and fitness moves in the apps or log your own workouts for points and exp. Accumulate enough, and you reach the next level, gaining badges along the way. Compete with your friends, and see who can score the most points while working out! The competition and achievements will keep working out from becoming boring, and allow you to motivate yourself better!

4. Blogilates

(Image credit: http://www.alwayswith.nl)

Free
Available for both iPhone and Android

Blogilates, the free app for the popular Blogilates YouTube and web phenomenon is something that really complements her free videos. In addition to allowing you to keep up with Cassey Ho, Blogilates founder, the app also has an “Instagram” like forum inbuilt, which allows you to post pictures and connect with everyone else on the app! The incredibly supportive community will be there throughout all of your progress pics as you gradually get fitter and fitter.

5. Just Dance Now

(Image credit: itunes.apple.com)

Free
Available for both iPhone and Android

Just Dance Now isn’t your traditional fitness app – but it IS a tremendous amount of fun. Just Dance Now is a dancing game much like Para-Para that you can play, using your smartphone as a controller (much like how the Wii is used). You will need a connection to a television, computer, tablet or stream the game on screen from the synced website. It has a good number of free songs to try (with a daily limit of 3), and the best thing is that you can even play with your friends! While dancing may not be the same as weightlifting, anything that gets you onto your feet and moving can only be a good thing for your body!

6. RunKeeper and/or equivalent run mapping apps

(Image credit forums.appleinsider.com)

Free
Available for both iPhone and Android

RunKeeper and other equivalent apps (MapMyRun, Nike+ Running, Strava) just to name a few are apps that log the distance you run and map it for you using your phone’s GPS. Some of these apps also allow you to connect with the community and your friends. Most also come with features like tracking your pacing and other fitness objectives. Many people have even creatively used such apps to “draw” gigantic pictures with their running routes!

BONUS: Zombies, Run!
~S$5

(Image credit: http://www.windowscentral.com/)

Available for both iPhone and Android

Zombies, Run! is worth a try just for its unique and interesting design. It’s both a fitness running app, AND a game. Zombies, Run! puts you in the shoes of a runner outrunning the zombie apocalpyse. This app comes with a fully featured storyline, allowing you to immerse yourself in the game (with audio recordings of the storyline that simulate the sounds of being chased by zombies), and it has been said to get people’s hearts pumping in more than one way! You can collect items for your missions while you’re out on your run, and then use those items to upgrade your base to protect yourself from zombies. This app is not just fun, but apparently incredibly effective at motivating people to run (as seen by the sheer number of positive reviews).

What are some of your favourite “fun” apps for fitness? Let us know! We all need a good reason to motivate ourselves into being healthy!

Confide: A Free App to Keep your Business Secrets from Getting Hacked

These past few days, the news of a huge entertainment company being hacked shocked most of us. This big company is no other than Sony Pictures. A hacker group called LulzSec sent out a message on Twitter saying: “1,000,000+ unencrypted users, unencrypted admin accounts, government and military passwords saved in plaintext. #PSN compromised. @Sony”.

Image Credits: TRF_Mr_Hyde via Flickr

Various collections of data were accessed and stolen easily without the need of outside monetary support. Among these data are admin details including their passwords. Truly, it is very scary.

This is not the first time Sony has been hacked. In 2011, hackers stole the personal information of over 24.6 million Sony Online Entertainment users with more than 20,000 credit card information. This is such an embarrassment for a company as big as Sony.

This “simple” attack by LulzSec will surely make Sony paranoid to the extent of further improving their technological restrictions, security, and privacy. Luckily for Sony, a private messaging company offered their services to them for free.

Confide, a relatively new private messaging App for Android and iPhone, mimics the capabilities of Snapchat. The only difference is that, Confide does not let the people you send messages to take a screenshot. It’s a way to send messages to your contacts without having to worry about the information getting hacked or leaked out.

Screenshot Credits: Confide App via Google Play Store

Other features of the Confide App include: messages disappearing forever once they have been read, messages being encrypted, messages can be sent to email addresses or phone numbers, and getting notifications once your message has been read.

Best of all? It can be downloaded for FREE in Google Play or ITunes.

Along with Sony, Confide App is now trying to capitalize on the Sony hack by pitching its services to other big companies. If you asked me, I would say that perhaps Confide App has an association with the recent hack in order to market their business, but that is just my crazy conspiracy theory talking.

Image Credits: michael davis-burchat via Flickr

The main agenda of the hackers was to warn the nation of how “simple” it could be to access information with security flaws, and how it is paramount to tighten privacy measures in this age and time.

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