Read from the start of this discussion. You will find your answers there. Basically insurance is not a good tool for savings because the returns are lower than many other investments available and your money is tied for many years. If you withdraw before the term ends your returns are even lower.

This post has been edited by DannyOP: Nov 3 2008, 10:46 AM

well many people still put money in the FD, why?
With 3.7% people are keeping hundreds of thousands in it . . . . its the safest place to put ur money

Another point is many people are not well educated in investment such as share market/unit thurst/forex & etc
buying an Investment-link policy definately will give them better returns for their savings for long term.

well from my point of view, buying an Investment-Link policy

Transparency – Unlike the traditional policy such as whole life or endowment plan, an investment-linked policy reveals all your premium allocation clearly. This is what I call transparent policy – you can actually understand and see where your premium is used. Policy holder will receive a periodic statement that clearly and precisely lists all the premium allocation, relevant insurance charges, investment value and fund unit price. I owned both Prudential BSN Takaful policy and Prudential investment-linked policy. Prudential sends the report once a year. Besides this report, you will also get the investment-linked fund performance report annually. If you didn’t get the report stated above, please contact your agent. There is something wrong somewhere.

Low insurance charges – For fresh graduates, age around 23-25, it is normal for them to seek their first insurance agent and also the first insurance policy. When you are young, insurance charges are very cheap. Investment-linked policy calculates the insurance charges based on your age. They use a mortality table and clearly provide the insurance charges table in the policy. This means you can purchase high coverage with low premium when you are still young.

Flexibility – Once you get older, promoted, married, have kids, your protection needs eventually increase. When you retire, your kids are independent, your protection needs eventually decrease. Looking at this circumstances, investment-linked policy provides the flexibility to increase or reduce the premium, include or exclude certain coverage rider, supplementary benefits and sum assured. Put it simple, you can modify this policy whenever and however you want it to be.

All-in-one benefits – All sorts of coverage can be included into your investment-linked policy. This includes accidental benefit, hospitalization income benefit, living assurance, critical illnesses benefit, health card benefit, lady care benefit etc. Almost all available protection riders can be included. You will find it easier and cheaper to have one insurance plan that can give you all the possible benefits you need.

You control the investment strategy – Did you ever think that investment-linked policy is risky because it involves investment? Actually, you have the right to control the risk you can bear for your investment. You can choose which fund to invest, which strategy to use, which portfolio allocation to apply, and even when to do the switching from fund to fund which is normally free of charge. If you are skeptical about investment risk, just put all your premium into a fixed-income fund or bond fund.

It depends. How secure r u? Insurance is like selling assurance (hence the insurance) to us that if anything happen to us, they will keep us safe or get our share of compensation. It's basically psychology selling point to make your life a little bit less worried. Like if you have a multi million car parked in a gangster area every day, you will sleep peacefully even knowing that the probability of your car gone or exploded the very next day. Do you want that peace of mind or not?

This post has been edited by LeechFever: Nov 7 2008, 07:48 PM

Yes. I do think we all should buy insurance and make sure you got a medical card. And if you have any children, make sure you get them medical cards too.

This post has been edited by MilesAndMore: Nov 7 2008, 11:11 PM

What kind of coverage are you looking for in term insurance. A lot of insurance company in Malaysia has term insurance. Including the one I'm being an agent - GE.

There are many Health & PA in the market. What's your need? Quite surprised, with more than 20 insurance company in the market, you can't find the product that suits your needs. Tell us your need then we can help you.

I guess those billionaires are insured by their big corporations. If anything should happen to them, walla MSFT & BRK stock price will plunge. These 2 people are the backbone of their company, and nobody can replace them. Buffett is 70+ already, and I think he's gonna kong soon. Wonder what will happen to BRK upon his kong.


That's true in a way, but I still think people should have insurance. What if you're diagnosed with disease, the medical cost is high. Its always good to have insurance to cushion your own financial security. I also agree that insurance has its perks & tricks, no doubt about that. Sometimes, I'm also skeptical about insurance because they have so many rules & regulations that one has to follow before they'll pay your claim.


Sweet combination


Well sometimes I think the rich should have insurance to protect their assets. Although they have enough money for medical bills, but you wouldn't wanna spend your wealth on medical bills right.

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Added on November 13, 2008, 3:51 amI would like to know what kinda of different insurance type are there in M'sia market. AFAIK, there are:

1. Investment-linked insurance
2. Personal accident insurance
3. Medical insurance

This post has been edited by P.I.M.P: Nov 13 2008, 03:51 AM

IMO, there are only 2 reasons for buying insurance.

1. The thing you insured has a value to you and you can't afford or have trouble to replace it. Your house, car, life, lifestyle, health, jewelry, pet dog, boobs etc.
2. There are uncertainty. If you know for sure your house would never caught fire, nobody would want to insure it.

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Added on November 13, 2008, 10:43 amI have a different thinking. Sure, for life insurance, the beneficiaries are the wife and kids but there are other form of insurance that affects you personally. I called that the "out-of-this-world" insurance aka religions.

Many people buy these type of 'religious' insurance policy because they believe in life after death so it's basically an insurance for your soul.

Insurance company: Islam. Christianity. Hinduism. Buddhism.
Insurance agent: Iman, Priest, monk etc.
Insurance premium: How many times you have to go to church? Your attitude towards fellow being?
Insurance benefit: Heaven, Nirvana?



This post has been edited by Optiplex330: Nov 13 2008, 10:52 AM

Wah boobs!!! I think I wanna insure my ( ( .) la

Buy insurance when you have dependents.
I.e. dependents who depends on you to live.

It's not about replacing things. If I die, and I have no dependent, what for I want to insure my house or my car which is no use to anyone? If I die, and no one depends on me to live on, why should I insure my life?

Uncertainty, yes....i.e. accident insurance and medical.

It is important at any range of your age. Put those risk to insurer instead of your own Bank Account.

i tink it is necesary...
u might not noe when u meet an accident...
jz my 2cents...

Insurance allocation is LOW in first few policy years. (1st to 4/5th)

This post has been edited by transit: Nov 24 2008, 07:41 AM

Need to get some feedback from all the pro/sifu in here..
I'm looking for term-life insurance n currently scouting for one. anybody can help please ?

^Insurance mostly are LONG-TERM.
I'm not going to suggest you any good insurance company but you need to know

- What kind of insurance you need(ie. medical, accident, retirement)
- How much u can allocate in your insurance monthly(Burden yourself with paying too much on insurance is not a good financial management)

i dont know if this is the right thread to discuss this, but i remember another forumer (i think is dreamer101, appologies if i got it wrong) that said, if you have enough liquid funds to match your life insurance coverage, there is no need to buy, as you family will get the money on your passing.

i disagree as with or without those funds, a big lump of money paid on any untoward incidents is a big lump of money and will further help ease the burden of your loved ones.

ie.
lets say 100k is enough to see your kids graduate and with some left over for wife old age.

if you have no money and no insurance, if you die, your family get 0
if you have no money and insurance for 100k, if you die, your family get 100k (enough to cover them)
if you have 100k and no insurance, if you die, your family get 100k (same as previous case)

however,
if you have 100k and insurance for 100k, if you die, your family get 200k (they will have additional 100k as buffer/investment in case of any more unforseen incidents)

unless you can find another method of generating a lot of money quick, i still think life insurance is a must.

of course, some will say that the premium if invested properly for xx years will generate more than 100k, but can you guarantee nothing bad will happen to you i nthe xx years?

Agreed on life passing part except Hospitalization portion

This post has been edited by transit: Dec 26 2008, 05:06 AM

lin00b,

Let's say you have 1 million.

1) Why do you want to buy life insurance of 100K?? Additional 100K will not make a difference to your family.

2) How about life insurance of 1 million?? The premium will be so high that it costs a lot of money. Aka, in general any life insurance more that 200K, the premium increase exponentially.

There reach a point where you have so much money that

A) The coverage has to be SO HIGH in order to make a difference

B) At that coverage, the premium is SO HIGH that it is not worth the money.

C) You have ENOUGH MONEY that the payout in life insurance WILL NOT make a difference in your family life.

You MAY buy critical illness insurance when you have 1 million. But, life insurance may no longer make sense.

Are you another insurance agent??

By the way, do not do "BAIT and Switch". Be specific, what kind of insurance are you talking about?? I was VERY SPECIFIC. I was talking about life insurance.

Dreamer

Agreed with below Critical Illness scenario.

dreamer,

thanks for replying.

I am not an insurance salesman, just a normal dude trying to work out some maths and logic. i am referring to life insurance and providing for your loved ones after you are gone. although the same case can be made for critical illness, personal accident etc. you potentially getting an extra wad of cash should anything bad happen, for the cost of a small amount of money monthly

i dunno, 1.1 million is still better than 1 million. i mean in terms of financial security, you can never have too much right? i suppose the cut off might happen in the billions which is mostly out of reach of most mortals here.

perhaps a better way of looking at it is how much %age of your total wealth it is paying out vs how much %age of your cashflow it is consuming?

This post has been edited by lin00b: Dec 26 2008, 01:33 PM

Putting money in FD, if bank fails, at least there is the hope that government will come in to protect the account holder.

Putting money in investment-linked insurance policy. What if the insurance company close door?

We aren't talking about a term policy whereby the 2008 term policy expires at the end of 2008, and 2009 I can buy insurance from other insurance companies.

We are talking about a scheme whereby the policy-holder hope that in X amount of years later (X could be as long as 30 years!!) they will get a lump sum from the insurance company.

What if the insurance company they invested their coffin money in collapses? Where is the policy holder going to get their money??

Don't say this can't happen. Remember what's happening to AIG?