One year after Singapore introduced MediShield Life – a universal insurance scheme, more people are getting help with their medical bills.

Nearly 400,000 claims were made between last November and September this year. A total of $614.3 million was paid out.

Of this, $102.5 million went to people who were previously uninsured, a Ministry of Health (MOH) spokesman told The Straits Times.

Over the same period in the previous year, $307.5 million was disbursed for 291,500 claims.

MediShield Life was launched on Nov 1 last year. It covers every Singaporean and permanent resident for subsidised care for life, regardless of whether they are healthy or already suffer from a serious or chronic disease.

Previously, those too old or sick to join when the scheme was launched were not covered. Within this group, 25,000 people deemed to have a serious pre-existing disease have to pay 30 per cent more in premiums for the first 10 years.

Now, the previously uninsured are covered – and also getting more in payouts. They made a total of 65,000 claims and received slightly more – $1,577, compared with other policy holders, who got an average of $1,539 per claim.

Both are higher than the average claim of $1,271 for MediShield, before the better coverage offered by MediShield Life kicked in.

There is a trade-off. Premiums rose, mounting to $1,736 million in the 11 months from its launch – compared with $685.7 million in the same period the previous year.

Almost half was paid by the Government, largely as premium subsidies.

Premiums not disbursed will be invested in the Special Singapore Government Securities as this has stable, long-term stability, said Fang Ai Lian, who chairs the MediShield Life Council.

The Council also decides on appeals, including requests from Singaporeans living abroad who do not plan to return here to live, to be excluded from the scheme.

It announced a month ago that they can be “suspended” from the scheme, but will have to pay the full unpaid premiums plus interest if they return permanently and require medical treatment.

About 200 people have applied for such exemption, she said.

salma@sph.com.sg

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A new nationwide plan aims to install 4,000 Wireless@SG hot spots in locations like polyclinics, hawker centres and government service centres – bringing the total of free Internet access points to 14,000.

Selected voluntary welfare organisations, such as senior activity centres and family service centres, will also be fitted with Wi-Fi hot spots for the first time.

It is part of a larger push by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to increase the total number of Wireless@SG hot spots to 20,000 by 2018.

There are currently about 10,000 Wireless@SG hot spots, split between community areas like community centres and libraries, and public areas, which include train stations, shopping malls and food-and-beverage outlets.

According to tender documents uploaded onto government procurement website Gebiz, the additional hot spots will first be installed in 18 polyclinics, and more than 80 hawker centres and 100 senior activity and family service centres.

IMDA chief executive Gabriel Lim said public use of Wireless@SG has increased six-fold since 2014, when a new login method using SIM cards made it easier for users to access the hot spots.

“Our team is currently gathering more feedback and ideas from the public, including holding focus group sessions to help us improve Wireless@SG for all,” he said.

The IMDA is also working to boost Internet performance at public libraries, community centres and public hospitals which already have Wireless@SG hot spots.

The agency will add more hot spots and upgrade existing ones so that users can have wider coverage and faster surfing speeds, so as to address a common bugbear of surfing slowdowns when the network gets congested.

The expansion and upgrading works are expected to start in December.

According to IMDA, about two million unique users log in to Wireless@SG services per month, clocking in an average of 11 million hours per month as of September this year.

Since April this year, surfing speeds have been progressively upgraded from 2Mbps to 5Mbps – slightly faster than 3G speeds, but which fall short of 4G surfing speeds that range from 16.7Mbps to 18.6Mbps.

lesterh@sph.com.sg

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IT SEEMS like the “killer clown” craze has hit Singapore.

A video uploaded on YouTube on Sunday by user Joel Wong shows a man dressed up as a clown scaring people in various locations in Singapore. This follows recent news from around the world of pranksters dressed in clown attire terrifying people.

The video opens with the line: “Since its (sic) nearing Halloween, I decided to dress up as a clown and scare some Singaporeans.”

According to the video, it seems that the police carried out checks on the identity card of the prankster and “advised” him not to upload any content.

But it appears that the prankster still went ahead to do so.

In the video, a man is seen donning a clown mask with red hair and wearing a white jacket stained with what appears to be red paint.

One of the prank sites is a park. The “clown” crouches in the bushes at night, then jumps up to scare passers-by. A mother and son pair scream at his sudden appearance.

Another site is an underpass, where the “clown” tries to scare passers-by by jumping out from around the corner.

Most people, however, look more bewildered than terrified.

When queried by The Straits Times, the police confirmed that they received a call for assistance at Block 489C, Tampines Street 45 at 10.40pm on Saturday.

“Upon arrival, the police engaged the parties involved and advised them accordingly,” the statement said.

Police investigations are ongoing.

The police also advise the public to refrain from such activities.

The Straits Times understands that the case is being investigated for public nuisance.

wderek@sph.com.sg

Clown terror spreads worldwide

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SCV, Tom Keller

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HONG KONG – Singapore companies, highly exposed to slowing global trade and a lacklustre commodity market, face a financing scramble in 2017, as more than US$12 billion of their bonds falls due and banks grow wary of lending to the resources sector.

That could trigger more blood-letting in a market that has already seen some high-profile corporate defaults, such as oil services firm Swiber Holdings, which hit the skids in July and went into judicial management this month.

It has also seen an increase in the number of bond issuers trying to renegotiate the terms of their credit to stay afloat, a disturbing signal in a market skewed to retail buyers and smaller issues subject to light scrutiny.

Corporate leverage has risen to increasingly risky levels, according to credit analysts and investors, while banks are becoming more circumspect about extending financing as the quality of their loan books causes concern.

Between now and the end of 2017, according to Reuters data, US$12.4 billion of bonds falls due, but corporate balance sheets in the city state are looking strained.

A Reuters study of 228 non-financial companies’ half-year earnings shows that 74 had net debt more than five times their core profit, a level that usually prompts concern among credit analysts, and more than a third of that group were at least twice that level.

“We had not seen Singapore dollar corporate defaults since 2009, but suddenly we see a pick-up in defaults in 2015-2016. This is a warning sign about a refinancing confidence crisis across many sectors, not just commodity-related ones,” said Raymond Chia, Head of Credit Research for Asia ex-Japan at Schroders Investment Management.

LIGHT SCRUTINY

The structure of Singapore’s capital markets has left them particularly vulnerable as global trade cools and Chinese growth slows. Commodities have been a mainstay after a frothy 2013 and 2014, and private banking has loomed large, fuelling smaller bond deals.

In 2014, private banks accounted for almost half of investments into Singapore dollar corporate debt, a central bank report said last year.

Their participation has helped encourage smaller issues that are not assessed by credit rating agencies and yet are targeted at private wealth investors, analysts say.

“Their bond issues are also mostly unrated, so the layer of scrutiny provided by rating agencies is missing. Many of these deals were mispriced: they priced like investment grade even though they had high-yield profiles,” said Harsh Agarwal, Head of Asia Credit Research at Deutsche Bank.

That is now changing – at considerable cost for firms.

Property firm Oxley Holdings, whose short-term debt dwarfs its cash balance, according to its latest accounts, saw yields on its bonds due 2019 jump 220 basis points to 7.5 per cent in the past quarter.

And banks, under pressure to increase provisions for bad loans, are pulling back from indebted sectors like real estate, commodities and oil and gas, which dominate Singapore’s outstanding S$53 billion ($38 billion) of local currency corporate bonds.

Non-performing loans have risen at all Singapore’s three banks in the latest quarterly results, reflecting a decline in loan quality across sectors.

“In the absence of further bank support, refinancing this debt may prove difficult, potentially leading to more defaults over the next year,” said Devinda Paranathanthri at UBS Wealth Management, which estimates S$18 billion of local currency denominated bonds are coming due over the next 18 months. Over a quarter are from sectors facing structural headwinds.

The latest sign of strain has been an increase in borrowers asking bondholders to cut them some slack.

Ezra Holdings, Rickmers Maritime, Otto Marine and Marco Polo Marine are just some of the companies that sought bondholder consent this year to loosen the conditions, or covenants, attached to their loans.

“It will continue to be busy, but the question is whether loosening covenants will be adequate to give these companies the lifeline that they need,” said Kevin Wong, Singapore-based partner with law firm Linklaters.

“There is a risk these consent solicitations may lead to full-blown debt restructurings.”