Yes, HLA relaunch the new cash builder recently and is closing on the 30/9/2011.

myghimh: If u ask any agent, they will say worth it. But if you ask me, it will depends on your objectives and needs.

Just hope to clear all the confusions regarding the cash builder plans mentioned earlier in the discussions.. To make it simple.

If you put in 10K each year for 6 years (Total saving 60K)
Calculation based on life assured whom is healthy 30 years old.

In builder 1: This is what you will get. Guaranteed.
At 18 years: Min 88088, Max 115036
At 20 years: Min 94537, Max 127988
At 30 years: Min 132188, Max 216187

In builder 4:
At 18 years: Min 88210, Max 113783
At 20 years: Min 101688, Max 133207
At 30 years: Min 139473, Max 218215

Normally you will get something in between.

Difference between builder 1 and 4 is; in builder 1, u have the option of withdrawing your income and cash dividend out at the end of 1st year without surrendering your policy. Whereas in builder 4, you can only withdraw after 20 years. If you withdraw earlier than that, it means you are surrendering your policy. Therefore the return you get will be lower than builder 1 (as in the comparison above at 18 years).

Builder 2 and 3 is somewhere in between builder 1 & 4.
These plan is covered by PIDM as well.

If you want more infos, I am contactable at 012-2842334

Yes for both.

Yes, the cash builder plan will be closed byend of this month. The notice for agents already out.

Not sure about what you heard, but this is what i heard.

Currently Bank Negara is witholding the approval of such plans for all companies. Reason is because some agents with certain company (can't mention name here) lied to the customer and causing a lot of problem. The customer complained with Bank Negara , and thus causing all the delay in new plan introduction.

Hong Leong Assurance next plan is call Income Builder, but do not know much about that plan yet.

Reason why Cash builder was re-inroduced was because the plan's structure was approved by Bank Negara previously, therefore HLA ntroduced it again for the agent to sell while awaiting for the new plan approval from Bank Negara. Anyway, the current cash builder plan is for 50 millions only, where as the cash builder introduced previously was for 300 millions and was fully subscribed.

Tentatively the next plan will be launch next month. But the details is still unknown.
Rumours saying that it may be a 9 years commitment plan, as compared to 6 years for the current cash builder plan.

The rest unsure.
Will keep u update once details of the new plan is out. Cheers.

Pukio: Totally agree with what u said. My suggestion is, prepare a list of questions that you want to ask the agent. Some agents are either lazy to explain much to you (they will just ask you to read the policy, or they do not know how to explain, because their lack of knowledge). At the very least, ask them to explain to you the quotation table in the policy. E.g. the total surrender value...scenario A/B...etc...This is actually the most important bit in the whole policy. The rest of the T&C should be more or less the same in all products.

Gavin: What I mean by "guaranteed min and max" is, that's the guaranteed min/max amount you are gonna get if you surrender ur policy at those years i mentioned. Some products only tells you about the projected return after certain years, but you may not know the min you may get if thing don't work out as projected.

GSC: It is good to compare before jumping into a plan. BN did not forbid selling of saving plans. It just that those new products pending approval by BN is being held up. Those with old products, or products already approved by BN prior to that can still be offered to the public.
Rumours that cash builder may be extended till december 2011 or 100Millions, because BN have yet to approve the new plan.

Kelvin: It is because the returns quoted in all these saving plan is calculated based on premium paid yearly. If you choose for monthly payment, it will cause you around 5% extra.
Same for if you are able to pay all premium in lump sum, then off course you got discount.
As for surrendering the policy half way, you will need to look at the surrender value at that time. Usually it is in a table attached together in your policy. You will not lose all your capital, but certain percentage, depending the time you surrender your policy. The earlier you surrender, the more you tend to lose.

If you surrender your policy say at 2 years, u will lose less than 20% if I m not wrong. The earlier u surrender, the more u lose.

I m not sure of such a clause in the policy about reduced plan. (from 60K to 20 K). Even if there is such clause, it will defeat the purpose of buying the plan in the first place.
NEVER over commit yourself.

Another way of doing it is by splitting ur policy. Say you wan to buy 20K per year (total 120K in 6 years), instead of buying one policy with 20K premium each year, u can opt for 2 policy with 10K each.

So in the event something unexpected happen and u can't afford the 20 K premium, then u can surrender one policy and maintain the other. Less damage done.

Generally all saving plans are more or less the same.

Either you get the returns earlier or later. At the end of the day, the returns would be more or less the same.

But off course each plan has its own good and bad points/ features. It is whether which one suits you better/your needs.

Not everyone buy these saving plans for the returns. Someone actually bought this cash builder plan because it was able to meet his needs. Even if another plan with a higher return comes around, he will still stick to cash builder. That because one of the features in cash builder met his needs/situation.

So...buy based on your needs and requirements, not necessarily the returns. Offcourse the return is a main criteria for many.

Happy hunting.

Savings is for long term, and together with the compounded returns, our savings will grow.

But it is not growing at a linear scale, more of exponentially.

An example to illustrate what i mean.

Say u save 100K, and at the end of 30 years ur saving is 400K.

If ur saving grow linearly, at 5th year ur saving should be 100K + 300K/30 x 5 = 100K + 50K = 150K

But in reality, at 5th year, our saving may only be 105K or 110K, it is during the final 5 years that our money grow exponentially, maybe from 220K to 300K (that's the power of compounding and time). Not sure whether im able to explain it clearly to u.

So, same apply for all these saving plans, since the plan is for 30 years, that's ur return if u keep it till the maturity date. But if u terminate or surrender early, then ur return will be much lower than what is projected (because money don't grow linearly)

Hope u understand what i am trying to tell here.

No doubt there will be few bad apples among all the agents. Not only in HLAZ, but others as well.

Since it is a 30 years plan, the guaranteed income is for 30 years of saving. If u surrender earlier than that, u will not get the guaranteed income as promised. What you will get back, will depends on the year u surrender. It is in a column on the right side of the table in the proposal stating surrender value for ur plan.

The amount in the surrender value will also depends whether u have withdrawn ur yearly guaranteed income or not prior to u surrendering the proposal. if yes, ur surrender value will be much lower.

Say if u surrender at 6th year, yes, u can get back ur capital, BUT that's include the money (guaranteed income) that u have withdrawn yearly prior to that. U actually make less than putting into FD for that 6 years. But if u keep till 30 years or after 15 years or so, then your return is higher than FD.