Insurance – it is one of those things you didn’t know you needed until you actually do. The importance of insurance cannot be said enough: a good insurance plan basically ensures that you are protected in times of hardship or health emergency.
For full-time employees, many firms provide work group insurance. This basically covers the employee in times of health need, such as hospitalisation, injury, illness etc. This means that as a full-time employee, you are covered for your basic needs – something that many freelancers and self-employed individuals do not enjoy.
One of the key problems freelancers face is the lack of income protection during times of injury and illness. What is a common employee benefit becomes non existent in the freelancing world – until now.
Hence, we are glad to announce our collaboration with GigaCover, an innovative company bringing income protection insurance to the market. Their product is specifically crafted and designed for freelancers in mind.
As an ardent supporter of the freelance economy, we are proud to throw our weight behind useful products that value-add to our freelancers and self-employed folks alike. Here’s GigaCover sharing more about themselves, in their own words:
Hello IoTalents Readers!
Not many know who we are, so first off, our introductions:
We’re GigaCover, and we aim to bring super-flexible and affordable insurance to freelancers and self-employed persons.
Being a freelancer has its perks – flexible working arrangements, setting your own schedule and datelines, going on a vacation without experiencing the guilt of asking your boss for leave… The work-life balance that comes with freelancing sounds like a dream for many. Which is why those in the IT field are choosing to find jobs on IoTalents, where there are plenty of job opportunities that allow for flexible schedules.
However, freelancers do miss out on some employee benefits. No, we’re not referring to the free office kopi (though that’s pretty nice to have). We’re talking about the days when you fall sick, get injured at work or outside of work and can’t do your job. You don’t get paid if that happens, unlike our employed friends who will continue to get a salary from their employers if they are hospitalised or on MC.
Furthermore, if something goes wrong when you’re working on an assignment (touch wood), you have to bear the cost that comes with it. Other administrative matters will also be your own burden, such as figuring out your own CPF contributions, and being your own “IT Guy”. The list goes on.
A Tripartite Workgroup convened by the Ministry of Manpower highlighted just how tough the situation is for such workers. A report released by the workgroup earlier this year highlighted many of these concerns (and more!) The workgroup found that the chief concern faced by freelancers and SEPs is the loss of income while recovering from injury or illness, and that a product which addresses this need of freelancers didn’t exist at that time.
DIDN’T EXIST, AT THAT TIME. That’s changed now! That’s because we at GigaCover launched our Freelancer Income Protection (FLIP) insurance in June 2018, tailor-made to the unique demands of freelancers and flexible jobseekers! Unique features of FLIP include:
(a) weekly or monthly policies – no big lump-sum annual payments!
(b) on-demand cover, with no penalties or “admin fees” for stopping or changing your cover
(c) fast and automated online quotations, purchases and claims – no need to meet your agent and rely on them to buy or process claims
(d) fast and automated claims pay-outs – straight to your bank account!
(e) underwriting by MAS-regulated insurers (no shady business from us)
Now that we’ve officially launched FLIP, we’re looking to work with like-minded partners who want to support freelancers like we do. IoTalents comes to mind! As Singapore’s leading platform for the self-employed IT workforce to find jobs, IoTalents has connected many tech talents successfully.
Thus, we’re excited to announce our partnership with IoTalents to provide their talents with free income protection insurance. IoTalents will get to enjoy $40 worth of free insurance, enough to get covered for 1-2 months. They can choose to upgrade their plans and get more coverage with a small top-up, and can continue to keep enjoying free coverage if they introduce other eligible workers through our referral programme. Simply email hello@iotalents.com to claim your exclusive promo code!
We hope that this partnership with IoTalents will better support freelancers, providing them and their families with a peace of mind. We wish to further collaborate with IoTalents to see what other areas we can work towards to continue supporting freelancers and serving the community – stay tuned for good news 😊
If you have any questions about GIGACOVER FLIP, do check out our website at www.gigacover.com/flip, or drop us an email at hey@gigacover.com and we’ll be happy to help.
Happy job hunting, and stay safe!
Love,
Team GigaCover
hey@gigacover.com
IoTalents.com is an integrated platform for online Hirers and IT Workforce (Employees, Contract workers and Virtual Talents) to get intelligently connected and transact. We match companies to awesome talent, through a precise combination of data science and human judgement.
