Monday, May 05, 2008

Give fair value to consumers

Someone from NTUC Income (probably an insurance agent) has been posting rude remarks in my blog accusing me of being "bitter" and behaving like "Dr. Mahathir" in my postings on the business practices of NTUC Income.

I wish to tell this person that I am not "bitter". I will continue to give a fair analysis of the various investment options available to the investing public.

I hope that NTUC Income will continue to uphold its principles of being a cooperative and giving fair value to the consumers. I will be happy to recommend NTUC Income in these circumstances.

He has been particularly unhappy that I do not recommend investing in the Combined Fund with an upfront charge of 3%. I find this charge to be too high, especially as many unit trusts have now reduced their upfront charge to 1.5% or less - for investors who invest directly.

I find that too many financial products have been launched in the market to take advantage of the naive, trusting consumer. They give poor value to the consumer. You can read my views here:

www.theonlinecitizen.com
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/04/30/high-cost-of-living-%e2%80%93-what-the-government-can-do/#comment-27523

On a separate point, I continue to receive many rude postings against insurance agents of NTUC Income. I have to block them from being posted. To the people who made these postings, please discontinue it, as it gives an unnecessary burden in moderation.

3 comments:

hongjun said...

Mr Tan now is a customer of NTUC Income and thus has the rights to fight for something that is unfair to him. I find this perfectly okay.

Whatever new policies NUTC Income has to offer, they should only apply them to new plans. As for the decision whether to apply them to existing policies, policyholders should be consulted first before taking actions.

Ask before you take other people's money. This is very basic.

Cheers
hongjun

Anonymous said...

Hi Mr Tan

Does the upfront charge of 3% affect those who have already gone into the Combined Fund?

Tan Kin Lian said...

The upfront charge of 3% applies to new investments.

The old investments are subject to the expense ratio which varies according to the fund. The funds of NTUC Income have, for the time being, quite low expense ratios compared to the market.

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