Hi there,

I have this insurance agent, that is a friend of my mom.

She(agent) use to become our family agent for almost 20yrs.. but only pass her test on 2008.

All the while she's(agent) been using her son-in-law name before she(agent) gets her own license.

Every time whenever me and my wife has a question, she(agent) doesn't know how to answer. She(agent) only know how to read in chinese but not in english.. (wondering how she pass her test)

Currently I have bought few policy about rm600/month for my wife and children.

And I don't even know what is my policy covered. The whole pile of papers she(agent) gave to me seems too ridiculous for me to study.

She is my mom's best 'pengampu' friend for a long time. Even my both brother's family have bought policy from her for quite sometime and they are frustrated too.

Any one had this same problem too..? To change agent is quite impossible for me, cos I don't want to offend my mom.

Need advise...

Well, bro. Sad to say that you sucks in your financial management. No offense.

Since you've already committed (600/mth somemore ), I'd say you can either:
1. Change the policy if you don't like/trust her service.
2. Ask a friend who is working as an insurance agent to run through the policy for you and consider whether you want to change.

As an ex-agent, my advice to you is to look for the service 1st then only consider the policies/products.

Now I'm not an agent anymore but sometimes I still review some policies for my friends for free. (Some agents might charge for reviewing policies)

If you need help, you reply here la.

well, i just think it is reasonable to take your own agent wat..
insurance agent is a service industry.. which you expect the agent service when you need it..
just imagine, your agent is 50 years old, and you are 25 years old..
at the moment you really need the insurance, especially in your elder age (for example 55 years old), how could you expect a grandma of 80 years to service you to claim the insurance for you..

TS did buy insurance for his kid too.
Just imagine when his kid age 25, and the nanny still there to service?

I don't have a chance to choose which policy I wanted, all the while, is she(agent) proposed to my mom first, and we are like being force to take it, same goes to my both brothers.. my mom seems to be brain-wash by her(agent).

If let say, I would like to get a new person to handle my policy, what type of steps should I do first?

Thanks.

actually you have the right to not sign the policy, if you don't understand it at the first place....

this is not an ordinary insurance agent.. my mom play the biggest role in ASKING instead of convincing..

For your question, once you've signed the policy, the commission of the policy will go to her. Others from the same company as hers will not bother to handle your case cause there is no benefit towards it.

My advice is study before you go into any contract of policies.
You can cancel a policy anytime as a consumer.

Btw, insurance is a serious thing you know? It's important to be filial but it's more important to have a GOOD FINANCIAL PLANNING!

Ask your mom this, "mom, you want me to suffer in my afteryears financially or you wan me to upset your 'so-called' fren? u decide mom."

Cheers.

It is not difficult to study the policy. It is very clear and precise. In fact, you should take an effort to understand it. Don't depends entirely on agents as they can also give you wrong info. If in doubt, call insurance company and ask them to explain.

TS, dont feel sorry to say NO to your mom.
even if you buy ILP, you still at least need to pay for 20yrs ++
it's a huge amount of money and it doesn't guarantee good service from your mom's good friend =.=

thats why i say NO NO NO to my mom when she suggest me to buy insurance from her old friend..

TS, maybe you could go through the document yourself? I have read through the insurance document myself, it is not difficult to read once you get the flow.

Another way is to just change agent, i believe you would need to top up your insurance to change agent, at least for me lah (I'm using prudential). Just give some excuse like friends tell u this and you buy and pretend you don't know that it would actually change agent by doing that...

Good luck.

+1

TS, as I've mentioned, go for the service 1st. By the end of the day, the purpose of an agent is to SERVICE you when you need them. Well, the quality of the product is another key factor to consider when buying a policy.
That's y i handed my cases over to my manager and make sure my ex-clients are in good hands.

So, YOU choose for your own needs. NOT YOUR MOM.

i feel for you, my DAD did exactly the same thing as your mom...kinda FORCED to sign the agreement without knowing what the policy actually cover..i argue with my dad for 2 days before finally sign the damned paper just to please him. it cost me 200/month, which kinda costly when i was just a fresh grads that time.

1) if you didnt care what your mom think anymore, straight change to another agent. beware though, your mom agent will complain and things might get ugly

2) you and your bros find opportunity to gang your mom continuously, but DO NOT let the agent know. if still fail, consider use method 1

good luck

What's done is done. Actually, I think you should make your agent sit down with you and your wife (and maybe your mom too, to prove your point) and get that agent to explain the whole policy to you. If she can't do a good job, make her get her manager to explain the policy to you.

Honestly, if you read and study the policy yourself and end up still not understanding much, what is the point? Push the agent and the insurance agency to discuss with you until you fully understand the policy coverage. That agent needs to know you are not satisfied with her inefficiency.

i think you can make a complain to the insurance company that she is representing

in my opinion, even if you already fully understand your policy and assume that the policy is very suit your need.

can you confirm that the aunty able to provide good and efficient service to you, wife and your kids?
(touch wood, if she pass away, who's going to take over her task? her son in law?)

insurance is long term commitment and we need long term support/service from the agents. please don't blame your mom if there's anything happen in future, because it's you who make the decision now..

just m 2 cents.

i can only agree with the rest. insurance is not the place for friendship. your agent is worthless and you should switch ASAP. you can call the insurance company and request that the policy be removed from the agents portfolio because she cannot inform you about the policy. then ask them either to assign a knowledgeable agent to the policy to explain and consult you or ask them to explain everything to you directly and then get the account handled directly. that way you should be able to also get them to discount the premium by the agent comission. nice side-effect but only do this if you are truely comfy with handling the policy. from what you said, you might not be (no offence). then please get a decent agent.

tell me what u bought...name of the plan.. then i can help explain to u what it is even here...

Ask to talk to the son-in-law. He took the test. He must know something about insurance. He's probably doing some selling himself. Tell your mom you are more comfortable talking to someone your own age instead of aunty. You just need him to explain a few things about the policy.

Regarding commissions. Ten years ago, there was this insurance agent that comes to my office to talk to our boss. We see him nearly every week. The frequency of his visit gradually reduces until we see him only one or twice a year. Now, we don't see him anymore. Just mail the quarterly premium cheque to the insurance company.

As I understand it, most of this kind of insurance policies run for a very long term. Decades. But the agents gets most of their commissions early on. This reduces, so that after just a few years, the agent get no commission at all. This means they have to go out and get new customers all the time. They cannot go out to get lots of customers for 3 years, and then just sit back and draw their commission for the next 50 years.

It is also necessary, because when an agent has just started out, he has only a few customers. Let's say an agent gets 5 new customers on his first month, and another 5 every month. On the 12th month, he would have 60 customers. After 10 years, he would have 600 customers. If he was drawing a constant commission from each customer, he would starve for the first couple of years, and after 20 years, be extremely rich. Therefore the commission is structured in such a way that the agent gets most of his commission early on in the first few years of each customer's policy.

My guess is, by the time the insurance policy matures, most people do not have an insurance agent anymore. It does not matter whether your agent is now 40 or 60 years old. In 30 years time, they will both be retired.

dkk,

there's always bad apples among the agents, some responsible agents will keep service you even they earn nothing from you anymore.

as i know, an agent can earn up to 40% from the policy up to 7 years. (the % they gain from policy decrease by year)