I received an e-mail from someone seeking my advice. She saw an insurance adviser who offered three plans.
The recommendations were skewed to get her to move away from term insurance and to buy a limited premium product.
I advised her to adopt the following approach:
1. Talk to three advisers (from the same or different companies)
2. Buy from the adviser who gives you a recommendation in your best interest
3. Do not buy from the adviser who tries to convince you to buy an expensive product
4. Trust your common sense; do not allow the adviser to confuse you.
Singapore is still stuck in the groove of product selling when the rest of the developed countries have moved to advisory.
ReplyDeleteOnly 5 companies(A,P,Ax,G,M) are beginning to see the need to move to this model. Their agents are properly trained in financial planning and are getting the necessary accrediction to advise clients on their needs.
The company that is trying to be number one is still using product selling to achieve it.If it achieves it means more clients suffer in the hand of the company and its insurance salesmen.It is not commendable; it is shameless; achieving it at the expense of the unwary clients' financial future is even more despicable.Look at the kind of products it is manufacturing; useless and no financial planning value.
Customers must be educated to see the difference and to see through the motive of the insurance agents.
To check them, usually the approach is to talk to a few, like Mr. Tan suggested. Engage them to uncover whether they are salesman or adviser. Look at the qualification. If they don't have the necessary alphabet soup after their name maybe you should discontinue.When you can get one with the proper alphabets why go for one without. It is safer.This is to make sure your financial pilot has proper license and not having a class 3 driving license or some dubious accredition.
Many people who join the industry seem to think that life insurance
ReplyDeletebusiness is operated this way.It is a sales job. You have secretaries , retrenched bus drivers, salesmen and factory workers and even engineers attracted by the lucrativeness and only lucrativeness and nothing else.The successful ones are the ones who make a lot of calls and this activity is key to the "success" and measured by the number of sales or closings. There is nothing they learned about helping the clients and even they did it is merely selling an idea of protecting their loved ones. Their modus operandi is offering more choices.It doesn't matter which one the client chooses, it is still a sale.Of course if the client can be persuaded to take the more expensive one , it means more commission for agent.It is clever ploy but it is meaningless as as the cleint financial need is concerned. The experts will advise you never to trust a salesman with your finances.