Selling insurance has no differenation edge, usually Agent X wins over Agent Z in price/cost, as service is generally the same among Agents.

To create an edge, Agents do creative selling, eg, a friend calls himself a 'Life Engineer" and this is when the problems of misleading, misinterpretation, misinformation, lack of disclosure starts compounded with lack of training, poor training and understanding.

Really, can Agents sit in class for 1 day, answer 60 MCQ questions and next thing licensed to do a client's insurance? What more to do savings?

I have met some insurance agents who tried to sell me savings plan, they totally have no idea what is inflation and they don't know how the underlying components of the plan, simply it is stocks and bonds.

Clients who bought on the promise / expectation of a sweet talking agent have all lose when those promise / expectation don't play out. Agents and insurance company don't lose much.

Mass majority of people of blind, following the masses, lemming-like.
eg, a new born baby, quickly buy education policy because friends, parents and every Tom, d***, Harry do so.

But really what is an education policy? It is nothing more than a normal life / investment linked policy stopped at age 25 and tagged 'education'.

Most education policy cannot even fund 1 years college fees, but people buy into the 'promise' only to find out the CON when they need the money.

They would have been be off savings their money in a dividend based fund or stock.

And these Agents don't advise in these manner, probably due to their lack of knowledge or if they know, due to their personal interest.

They call themselves "Life engineers" now? Wow so creative. So now they are life gurus too?

I think risk = reward and people who go to insurance companies for investment are mostly people who don't want to take risk so in the end they get what they deserve which is no reward or very little. But I pity people who don't understand the risks that they are taking. Seriously, what is Bank Negara doing to catch all these people misusing the term "Financial Planner"?

And who said got no differentiation? Some agents prettier than others.

This post has been edited by JohnL77: Dec 5 2013, 08:13 PM

Guys, get one thing clear, Cash Promise or any other savings plans on the market with an insurance company is exactly what it is; a savings plan. If you are expected a 20 to 30 percent margin or if you were told that kind of lucrative interest rates, then please go back to the saying 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.". Some more even a typical investment cannot give that kind of projection! The jizz of a savings plan is to have your money locked down. Or take Warren Buffett's advice, he endorses 'long term'.

I personally sell savings plans and the only way to benefit from it, what I tell my clients is that the only way for them to benefit the most out of this plan is to wait for maturity, 20-30 years. Yes, 20 to 30 years. And that this is your last resort, you don't touch this savings plans whatsoever.

PS. for Cash Promise, or any other plans our there, you will not, or more properly, can not get back your investment if you were to surrender the plan after 6 years.

"This is a 25 year participating endowment plan..." - http://www.hla.com.my/ourproducts/pds/CashPromise.pdf

How can you call it savings when the money you pay is considered as premiums, not capital. Worst case scenario, Scenario B, you only get your accumulated Guaranteed Income. That's it. It is an endowment, you pay premium, you get Guaranteed Income. So easy to understand.

This post has been edited by JohnL77: Dec 5 2013, 09:48 PM

BNM or Security Commission cannot catch them all. You all as member of the public should also be vigilance enough to detect misrepresentation.

Will the real Financial Planner pls stand up

and

BNM list of licesed Financial Advisor as of Sep 13 (updated twice a year)

Xuzen

p/s "Life enginners" is a very creative term and probably will not get that person into trouble. Whereas Wealth Managers, Money Manager, Wealth Advisors, Wealth Planner, Financial Manager are all regulated terms.

This post has been edited by xuzen: Dec 5 2013, 09:03 PM

Assuming a buy and hold strategy for 20-30 years timeframe .. one single stock in a quality company like PBB will make me a millionaire, whereas a super quality company like BRK or coke I will be a billionaire.

Now with the same capital, can an insurance policy make more money aka making me richer WHEN I am ALIVE?

More money means I will have a better retirement.

As for insurance having protection, savings policy sum assured amounts are peanuts compared to a true protection policy assuming premium paid is the same.

For AGENTS, ask yourselves and answer honestly, how many months can YOUR savings policies sum assured maintain your lifestyle assuming you claim today? Betcha your last dollar, it wouldn't be a year.

We haven't even talk about risks, fees and charges and liquidity of the said instruments.

All insurance policies carry RISKS, just that you are not aware of till it hits you in the face.

This post has been edited by lunchtime: Dec 5 2013, 09:13 PM

When you misled others, you will soon misled yourself.

Please ask for the Surrender Values and you will understand where the catch is.

It IS true that you will get a Guaranteed Yearly Income (GYI) of RM2020, no trick here.

It IS true that you can withdraw ALL the money you invested after 6 years, no trick here.

The trick is that you THINK you get to keep all the RM2020 x 6 = RM12,120 AND get to withdraw fully the RM10,000 x 6 = RM60,000. You WILL NOT. If you withdraw at year 6, the amount you get back (the Surrender Value) will be RM60,000 - RM12,120 = RM47,880 only. You DID get your GYI the past 6 years, right? You DID get back ALL the money invested after the 6th year, right? Nobody cheated you. You salah faham saja. You ingat the two sums are separate when in fact they are not.

The Surrender Value is defined as INCLUSIVE of your Guaranteed Yearly Income. Everyone interested in this scheme thinks that the GYI is given separate from the money invested which is completely returned after 6 years. Not true. Ask your agent. Baru faham.

So if you have already signed up and plan to check out at year 6 to have your cake and eat it too, well, bwahahaha, sorry-lah my friend, because you will get your cake at year 6 with 6 big pieces missing - the same ones you ate as GYI all these years.

Of course, you WILL get a small bit of interest at year 6 but it is far below FD rates. If you want to get better rates than FD, you will need to stay the full course of 25 years.

This thing is an insurance scheme marketed as a 20% interest FD replacement - it is no such thing, especially in the short term. It looks good because we are seeing things that are not there. And the agents are not going to help you see the right thing unless you do your own homework. If from the very start they told you the fact that you will get back all your money MINUS your GYI at year 6, I think you won't even bother at all with this.

+1.

The curious issue with Agents is
When they sell own company policies, they blur blur on their own policy

But

When they compare other company insurance policies, they so smart and clever.

Makes you wonder which company should they actually work for.

Just got my first job a few months back and was looking for something that can provide better returns than FD but without high risk involved. Friend introduced me to this HLA agent who promoted the HLA Cash Promise plan.

RM10,000 X 6 years.

Being a newbie in this, was really attracted by the way he "presented" the plan, with 20% per annum and cash dividends + death/TPD insurance all bundled into one. Just pay for the first 6 years, and continue to enjoy the yearly income and dividends up to 25 years. Can withdraw anytime but early termination would cause me not to fully enjoy the benefits/dividends.

Like some people here, I was fooled into thinking I would have RM60,000 at the end of 6 years + RM12,000 + Cash dividends 0.02%

Some more its by a bank not some shady skim-cepat-kaya. So convincing.

But then came home, thought about it a bit. Did some calculation with all the limited knowledge I have and some research. Deduced that it is actually not that far from FD actually.

Drew up a table with the same concept of RM10,000 x 6 years for FD and HLA Cash Promise (A&B)



It seems that only in Year 13, the amount withdrawable in Sce (A) is more than the FD, where as in Sce (B), forever will be less than FD. Assuming the FD rate stays at 3.0% for 25 years. That is probably not likely though.

In conclusion I think HLA Cash Promise is NOT a scam. Its just a long term savings plan that does not differ much from the FD overall but comes with insurance protection.



This is just my personal deduction, so there might be a lot of things I've overlooked.

You missed the fact that you can get insurance protection for much cheaper. For example, you get PA protection of RM200,000, you pay RM200 premiums per year. Go look at the surrender value vs the premiums that you pay for these plans.

You also forget the liquidity risk. If you practice portfolio theory, you won't have liquidity to buy assets when they are cheap.

And when someone sell you one thing but you get another thing, it is a scam. For example, someone sell you magic science water that can improve your health but turns out it is just water and there's no scientific evidence to prove your health improved. Sure, you still get the water, but don't you feel scammed?

Hehehe...

This post has been edited by JohnL77: Jan 11 2014, 02:56 AM

Actually, Cash promise plan/saving plans is not a scam product la. It sounds scam when the agent is misleading. The product is approved by BNM and even the SI need to go thru BNM for approval to be presented to the public.

But when agent talk, they can promise sky and earth and some promise heaven for you, and that is the place where things goes wrong.

On liquidity, you can cash out partially on what you had paid. Just need to go to HLA and enquire about it, so no issue on it. If you did not cash out on your annual cash out, you can cash them out in the future if you need them in a sudden.

Yes.......................................................................................................

HLA plan = not a scam

How agents sell to you = scam



That's what I said. Reading comprehension..................................

This post has been edited by JohnL77: Jan 11 2014, 07:09 PM

Cuz when I read your reply, you sounded as if HLA cash promise plan is scam.

I like the word

"Savings with insurances. GREAT if you die or Tpd"

macam encouraging us to die only....lol

Not great actually. If you invest your money somewhere else and have a separate insurance policy, when you die you will get moar money. Seriously, from my experience, a lot of people who buy these endowment policies have a separate life insurance policy. So the death benefit for these endowment policies are nothing to shout about. If you get a projection from the agent, you will see that the death benefit becomes peanuts as the years go by.

agree , i rather buy a standalone death/tpd policy . the balance i invest elsewhere....

personally i was fooled by my HLA agent too. I noticed it on 3th year but no choice i have to paid until 6th year. and this coming feb is the last payment...

i will withdraw my money once complete 6th year..

if u withdraw at 6th or 7th year, u will get back less than break even.

What MNet said is true. If you withdraw now, you will lose money. Just accept you got cheated la, tell your friends and family not to get cheated.