Etaoin Shrdlu

9 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

How could I check this? Handyman did mention something about the switch feeling hot.....

 

But when switch is on how why would this matter?  Or were you referring to the afterglow rather than the flickering while turned on? 

The glowing lights after the switch is turned off.

I think it might be the way the switch is wired. If the switch disconnects the neutral wire and not the phase, you could have this problem.

21 hours ago, Dolf said:

If he died what would you talk about? 

This and a few other things:  https://www.mediaite.com/trump/welcome-to-the-end-of-democracy-trump-booster-jack-posobiec-vows-to-finish-what-began-on-jan-6-as-steve-bannon-cheers-on/

The name was changed to Sylvan Hotel some time back. Operating normally.

4 minutes ago, hello55060 said:

Thanks my wife and her family can still teach him mandarin. We plan to live here for the long term so we are looking for normal internationals schools in bkk and not ones that cater to learning Chinese as he will have no issues learning more of that. We appreciate the suggestion though.

Many international schools seek to attract children from Thai families and are expecting to work with students in the early grades who don't arrive with great English skills. My children had classmates in pre-school, kindergarten and first grade who came from families where English wasn't spoken in the home.

You might want to contact the schools that you are interested in from a curriculum standpoint and ask. 

Perhaps consider this school:  https://www.mandarin.ac.th

It looks like they teach in both Mandarin and English.

I once had a similar situation with a family member who booked through a different aggregator's website and had difficulty getting a favorable response to our request.

We ended up calling the airline's Bangkok office and got things sorted.

Qatar's Bangkok phone number is 02 618 0400

4 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

 

Most are not.

Yes, only something like 20 percent or so are.

2 hours ago, JCauto said:

That would be because there haven't been any attacks on Arabs and Ethiopians and their homes, businesses and places of worship. Should they report non-news events on the news? Is this some new standard of whataboutism? This would literally make discourse impossible as you would not just have to talk of the news of the day, you'd have to also talk about the things that didn't happen to everyone at the same time!

I will concede that not al muslims are Arabs, but many are:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10035853/israel-hamas-conflict-islamophobia-antisemitism-canada/

I haven't been able to find much in the way of claim settlement ratios apart from those of Indian insurers, but I tend to agree that the total percentage of medical claims paid is probably in excess of 90 percent. It may differ a bit from market to market, but a denial rate of greater than 10 percent or thereabouts on a market-wide basis would surprise me. The Indian regulator seems to do a good job of getting insurers to be transparent. It would be nice if regulators in other jurisdictions were as good. 

Even in heavily-regulated markets like the US, it is extremely difficult to obtain information on the percentage of claims that are denied or not fully paid by insurers.  Here are a couple of links to articles that discuss this issue:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-often-do-health-insurers-deny-patients-claims

https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/claims-denials-and-appeals-in-aca-marketplace-plans/

These articles mention that the denial rates can range between 2% for some insurers, to almost 50% for others. A company co-founded by the brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in one year denied 66% of claims according to the ProPublica article linked above.

Given the lack of transparency on the part of insurers, and legislators' apparent unwillingness to pry open that black box, it isn't possible to determine what portion of claims are denied for completely legitimate reasons and which part are denied due to bad faith or unethical practices by insurers. The ProPublica article mentions that less than 1% of policyholders whose claims were denied appeal the denial, which may or may not mean that most denials were for legitimate reasons.

While hard data on claims denial rates is difficult to come by, an insurance broker will usually know how well or poorly his clients have been treated and will avoid placing his clients' business with insurers that have poor claims-paying attitudes. Not surprisingly, insurers that charge higher premiums tend to have better claims-paying attitudes than those that charge lower premiums, but not in every case.

This whole issue highlights the drawbacks of having to rely upon profit-driven private sector insurers to spread the risk of healthcare costs, especially when regulatory oversight is poor and insurers are not held accountable for their misdeeds.

This company is a managing general agent and not a retail insurance broker.

Their website states that if you make an inquiry, they will refer you to a broker that has a distribution agreement with them. I don't think it is possible to know how good the broker's service is in this instance since we don't know to which insurance broker they would refer you or which you might select from their list of "providers".

They are up front with their providers, which includes the names of brokers or other agents they may work with and the AM Best ratings of the insurers that these providers use, although they do list a broker that uses an insurer that isn't rated by AM best.

With the exception of Cigna Global, all of the providers listed have US addresses, so one could presume that they fall under the state insurance regulator in their respective states. This is probably better than trying to hold a broker responsible if they come under the regulation of an insurance authority on a Caribbean island or under no regulation in a Middle Eastern free zone. Cigna Global would be regulated by the PRA and FCA in the UK, so that's ok.

You are probably going to be ok if you contact this company and they refer you to one of their providers, but I would avoid an insurer that does not have an acceptable AM Best financial strength rating.

9 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

They also sell HEPA sheets, specifically for air purifiers, and ACs.  Or you can be generic rolls or sheets and custom cut your own.

 

 

Thanks, I'll look into that.

We have a Philips 1215 air purifier and it works well.

Replacement filters from Philips Thailand run about 1,500 baht for the charcoal filter and 2,000 baht for the HEPA filter. Replacement filters on Lazada cost less than 350 baht for both. I suspect the Lazada HEPA filters aren't really up to standard, but will test one using an air quality monitor and see if it is ok.

Chances of getting a tourist visa may not be so great for your stepson.

With a parent in the US and no strong ties to Thailand (no job, assets, etc.) he may be turned down. Consular officials deny tourist visas to people whom they suspect will seek to convert a tourist visa to a green card once they arrive in the US.

7 hours ago, DonniePeverley said:

 

Valentines day .... really or is that just a theory ?

 

If Valentines Day a major thing here?

Yes, it's a major thing here.

Just try to get a table in a popular restaurant on Valentine's Day evening.

Valentine's Day.

Everyone taking their tilac out to dinner tonight.

25 minutes ago, The Fugitive said:

That is pretty wide! Could refuse your claim even if you were totally unaware (no symptoms) at the time of taking out cover!

Yes, and this is also true of some medical insurance policies, so careful review of policy terms and conditions is advisable, as is clarification from the insurer in the event of any ambiguity, before entering into a contract of insurance.

21 minutes ago, The Fugitive said:

Thanks for your information. I supplied the info that they (SBC) request upon their website to give a quote and added detailed explanations of my two 'pre-existing' conditions. I was surprised that the broker came back with a positive response, no mention of my pre-existing conditions and also quoted the exact premium payable. 

Personal accident and travel insurance proposals don't require the same level of underwriting scrutiny as medical insurance policies for a number of reasons.

For starters, the limits are low and the coverage is fairly narrow in that it only covers urgent care and the policyholder is expected to return to their home country once able to fly if longer-term treatment is required. The insurer isn't going to pay millions of baht to treat cancer, stroke or heart problems on an on-going basis.

Also, the definition of pre-existing conditions is anything, whether diagnosed or not, that is present at the time of policy inception or start of travel. This gives the insurer broad latitude to deny or limit cover. 

Detailed disclosure of pre-existing conditions isn't normally required for the type and level of cover this policy provides.