Hi guys and gals, lately i witnessed many investment linked and whole life plan being sold in the market and most of them mature when the policy holder age 85 and above. Since malaysian age of expentancy is till 75 years old which means that many of us wont live until the policy mature and wont be able to receive any maturity benefits together with other benefits attached with the policy.
Due to that reason i m considering in getting a term policy of 25 years but i am not sure whether i am making the right decision since majority are moving towards investment linked product/wholelife. Can any sifu (smile) comment? I m afraid that i will make a wrong decision....

There is no such thing of right decision or wrong decision.

If the insurance serve to your purposes and objective, then it is deem to do the job for you.

You/we don't need to follow the herd mentality or what majority have been doing.
Majority doing it, doesn't mean it is right (or wrong either) and doesn't mean it is suit to you.

Insurance is for yourself, not for majority.

Veda,

why not get the plan directly from the insurance. not sure what specific plan you're looking for but that way you can bag in the agent's comission for yourself and get what you want.

What a real insurance agent will do is sit down, and talk to you about yourself.

Your background, medical history, family medical history, your financials, what you expect, what you want.

And we then tell you what is feasible, what is not, what you can expect, what you cannot have. In this instance, you will have experienced agents that would tell you no, I can't sell you any policy, not because I don't want to, but because I don't think my insurer would cover you. That is the actual type of agent you need to consult.

Insurance is good for future need...so, it's good to buy it earlier...

Yup, that's what I am planning to do

Did a search and found this thread:
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1035110

This post has been edited by Veda: Aug 7 2010, 04:22 AM

Well, don't be too surprise if you don't get the discount. The mandatory rebate in question only deals with Motor Insurance.

On the grapevine also, thanks to the direct rebate, the insurance companies are now becoming more creative also to try and keep their agency base. Their solution is simple - Offices would not sell third party, only agencies. Offices will not renew cars more than 16 years old, only through agencies.

As far as I am concerned, investment link plan does not have maturity benefit. It's very different with endowment or term plan where you will have survival benefit, terminal bonus,revisionary bonus, maturity benefit, etc.

If you surrender your policy earlier than maturity, you should not worry about not getting maturity benefit because there is none. You will get any cash based on number of unit in your fund account versus the current market price. And you can also withdraw the cash value you have before maturity without surrendering your policy and there is no impact with your benefit, as long as the remaining fund is enough to pay the insurance charges. I'm not so sure with other insurance company, the money you withdraw is NOT a loan. There will be no interest will be charge if you take your money.

To make right decision, you need to ask yourself what is your insurance need.
- If you thing about to have money when you retire, maybe term policy is your choice.
- If you really want your family to get a sum of money after you die, doesn't matter you die young or you die old, maybe investment link or whole life is the answer.
- If you want to have a package insurance, a policy which cover everything, maybe investment link is the answer.

I said maybe because you need to further details the product to confirm it's really suit your need.

Just want to highlight. in Prudential investment link plan, you can always modify your policy to fit your current need and budget. I think this apply to other insurance company also. As example, before you marry maybe you just need a medical and low death benefit. After you marry and have kids, you might want to increase your death benefit without buying new policy. This method will be cheaper. To buy a new policy it may cost you at least RM100 but it will be more if you buy at older age. If you just increase the death benefit in your investment link plan, it may cost you just RM10-20.

personally i havent had any issues in getting the discounts. even TM is now giving the discount without making a fuss and so is MSIG (who until last year kept refusing to give me the discount).

Let's say I buy an insurance policy from a bank branch. The product is from the bank's insurance sister company - like Affin Bank for Axa Affin and Hong Leong Bank for Hong Leong Assurance.

Wonder if I can ask for discount if I buy from a bank branch?

Another thing I'm curious about - are there any insurance agent that works directly for an insurance company, or do all agents work for agencies?

Veda, no you wont get the discount from the bank i guess. It's their incentive to sell it to you if I'm not mistaken.

Noted. Thanks.

actually bancassurance the charges are already lower than if you buy from agents

Sifus-Sifus sekalian,

First of all, I'd like to thank everybody here for contributing information, ideas and discussion for this thread, it really really help a lot.

I took up insurance a couple of years ago without knowing what is covered and what is not, and have no idea what I'm paying for.

I need your advise here, I have 2 insurance policies with, but I would like to start with my first one (ILP, I draw out the detailed below from e-Connect site, so most probably GE insurance agents can dicypher the information below):-

Total Installment Premium: 150.00 (Pay monthly, I was told by my agent that the premium payment stops after 14 years)

Details as follows:-
--------------------

GREAT PROTECTLINK INSURANCE 100,000.00
CRITICAL ILLNESS BENEFIT RIDER 100,000.00
IL-HEALTH PROTECTOR 200.00 <- this guys comes with my car-plate registration number attached to it

ILP FUND DETAILS
Fund Name Fund Units Price Eff. Date Bid Price *Fund Value Apportionment Rate(%) Fund Due Date
Lion Strategic Fund 824.48 27/08/2010 1.56 1,289.49 100.00 13/09/2010

POLICY VALUES
Surrender Value of SA 0.00 Net Surrender Value 0.00
Surrender Value of RB 0.00 Net Policy Loan Value 0.00
Surrender Value of TB 0.00 *Total Investment Value (for ILP only) 1,289.49
Gross Surrender Value 0.00 Accumulated RB as at 0.00

Alright, the data above might be a little scrambled, hopefully some GE agent will be able to make sense out of this, my questions are:-

1. For monthly commitment, am I paying too much for a month for the above?

2. Is the coverage sufficient?

3. For the 'investment-linked' portion, does it look good? (Well from what I read so far, investment-linked doesn't really cut it out..)

4. Can I restructure the premium (to be cheaper) and allocation so that I adjust the sum assurred to be higher or something?

5. Any other information I need to be aware of? I tried to reading the darn policy document...can't really understand much though...

If there's anything, I willing to meet up with any the agents here. Basically I need more information, more comparisons and options. Much appreciated guys.

Thanks & regards,
Z Yuan

Simonhtz,

You have a protection oriented product from GE.

A1) I would say the plan is good though it could have been a designed slightly different. This is my opinion.

A2) This is best answered by yourself as you would know best how much you're worth based on human live value as well as liabilities at hand.

A3) This plan focuses on protection hence the investment values to me are bonuses in addition to the protection offered. Apart from that ILP policies grow their investment values slowly and tend to fluctuate due to market condition.

A4) Yes you may reduce or even increase the premium and adjust the basic sum assured and/or riders which may alter your premiums payable.

A5) Well you should know your policy could lack (since it was posted here) waiver of premiums riders. Apart from that I don't see any major issues now.

Moving on, if you still need to meet up to review your policy, I'm more than happy to assist you over a cuppa. As a matter of principle, could you please allow me to ask what happened to your current servicing GE agent?

Cheers,

HH

hi Z Yuan,

I am not GE agent, just want to share some info that I know. For your plan, it is ok while you are in your twenties as the cost of insurance is still low. But cost for the medical protection is increasing with your age, so is the critical illness (when attached in the investment link plan). So, there might be a concern when the cost of both the medical & critical illness increase when u reach your 30s/40s. By then, the premium paid and the bonuses from the fund might not be able to cover the cost. If this happen, insurance company will usual request policy owner to pay extra for the plan to continue inforce.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks

Thanks for the prompt reply!

For 2:-
$100,000, is this sufficient for any operation and hospitalization, I mean for the current medical trend in Malaysia now?

For 4 & 5:-
How do I find the rider portion in my policy? Is the 'investment-linked' portion's the rider? I'm just thinking if there's anything other that the medical benefits and IL portion, I thought of taking out (hopefully can decrease my premium a little)

My current servicing GE agent haven't been turning up lately. I do some spend some time on the phone with him on asking him to explain my policy, but the explanation didn't really drill into my head. Plus, my credit card for auto-debit expired, I wanted to meet him up so that he could help me update my credit card details...he hasn't called / turned up yet...=.=;

-- Z Yuan

100k lifetime coverage? that is not enough bro, one operation could cost more than that. if you're really serious about protection, i'd suggest getting at least 500k coverage.

500K, is this amount necessary??

Hi Simonhtz,

The rider "IL-HEALTH PROTECTOR" 200.00 would take care of your operation and hospitalization. The annual limit is RM100K with lifetime limit of RM300K.

The latest medical rider for ILP policies is SmartMedic series which has lifetime limit up to RM1.6 million.

All benefits other than Basic Sum Assured are riders for your policy. Let me know if you need any further info or help with regards to your policy.

Cheers,

HH