Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Revosave and Vivolife

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Revosave and Vivolife

Someone continues to post comments to attack the new products- Revosave and Vivolife, launched by NTUC Income. I have blocked these comments.

If this person submits a fair analysis of the products, I will post them here.

Here are some of my post postings giving general comments about these products:

http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/09/unable-to-pay-premium-till-70-revosave.html
http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/09/twisting-of-ilp-to-revosave.html
http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/02/comparing-anticipation-and-revosave.html
http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/09/advice-on-vivolife.html

8 comments:

Anonymous said...: DBS, 900 job cuts; Citigroup,50,000 ; Any more ? Plenty next year.
How to pay for the useless revosave and vivolife? Retrenchment benefit from vvolife? Ask ntuc or the agents to keep it. I got more worries than worrying about revosave or vivolife.
Let them lapse and lose all the premium I paid? Not so fast.. it is time to review whether i have been mis-sold and misrepresented. If I can get back all the premium it can go a long way to help me with my bills.
I am consulting a third party. So much has been said about these products. There must be some truths.
They say no fire no smoke and firemen from ntuc never came to douse it.
I am more convinced after reading those postings that they are rip off and I have been sold low quality products when there are better product around in ntuc. The questions are why agents are pushing these products only? Why are they behaving like this.? Why are they not conducting need analysis to find out the needs of the cleints first before pushing revosave and vivolife? Is there conflict of interest? Is it they get more commission from these products? Are they selling them to qualify for mdrt? Are they qualified?
There are myraids of questions and I hope ntuc agents can come out to answer them.

Very concerned; November 18, 2008 11:30 AM
Anonymous said...: Revosave is a dung and only dumb people got conned by this dung.Don't understand why people buy. Probably they didn't know because the agents never disclose the dung below but they misrepresented cashback annuities. Customers thought they are getting guaranteed 5% return every year. This is mis=selling.
Old people were conned into buying thinking they get 5% return cash flows. The old people could have invested their lumpsum to get much better return instead they were conned into regular investing.Eg.An old man with $150K is asked to invest $10K a year for next 15 years .Is this right? Is this ethical?
It is mis=selling and the product misrepresented as annuity product.This is cheating the old man of better return.; November 18, 2008 7:57 PM
adego said...: anyone for CLN? if the seller throw in nice gift, such as LCD TV, any taker?

going by this rate, CLN could easily go extinct

the question is, why is WL still around? still not extinct after so many decades?

I suggest all the WL haters to do something to extinguish the toxic WL.

come on, it's time to work for what u believe!!!; November 18, 2008 9:48 PM
zhummmeng said...: adego,
either you are an agent defending the products that you love because they give you the highest commission or you have this product and you are trying to self convince that you were not conned.
I notice your arguments stray from facts to fantasy.
Perhaps I should put this product in perspective.
First to answer why this product is still around?
1.this product has been aggressively sold for decades because it is most profitable for both agents and the company. Consumers have been so mentally conditioned that when they think of insurance they think of WLs. Consumers are clueless and so are many agents.
In the past WLs gave 'decent yield' because of many factors, like low cost of operation, lower salary for the ceos, and senior management and of course the bond yield was high and the cost of mortality was low.. These factors determine and have great impact on the value of protection and return.
Consumer products like electrical appliances and others , the cost gets lower and lower over time because of new development, discoveries and new methods of manufacturing.Can you say of insurance products like WL?
Return of the WL products is inverse to cost. Protection value is also inverse to return. Has there been any discovery or innovation that brought the cost down? Or had the bond yield gone higher or the equity or other assets return got any better? Has productivity of human capital returned better yeild? NO, cost gone up, investment gone lower. Take a product you bought many years ago and compare to the present products. Look at the cost of insurance(in the premium), the protection value per dollar premium and the return, the break even, you can see the products are very poor in term of protection and return(projected 3% after 35 years)
Most people buy WL for both protection and return, right? If it is either one , WL is DEFINITELY
a wrong product to use and so if is for return. If it is for both it is worser. You are short changed in both areas.More importantly WL deprives you of adequate coverage because it is expensive that you can't afford to address your needs FULLY. THis is insurance.!!!If you think you don't need to be fully covered I suggest that you don't even buy it at all.You only put yourself and your family at risk.
Another point to make..WL is inferior to regular ILPs(aka variable WL).(Space constraint I can't elaborate the differences.) But BOTH WL AND VARIABLE WL ARE SUCKS.They are rip off at your expense.
The best approach to addressing your needs is to separate your protection and investment. Actuaries won't admit it openly. Because actuaries are in this business they have to be mumb, non disclosure , non truthful
but the truth today it is VERY DIFFICULT to justify the use of WL to address needs.There used to be one last use of WL but when estate duty was repealed it was the last nail to the coffin of WL.
Maybe I give you one assignment to research.Find out "Why insurance companies are afraid of Life Settlement Trading"? Maybe you will find some shocking evidences of many things the insurers didn't want to let you know.
For the moment I hope I have convinced you why WL sucks. If you look at today's products, eg. like vivolife you can see the insurance companies are desperately trying to hide the rotten return and protection with 'red herrings' to distract you. In fact it is not uncommon that the unethical salespeople use the 'red herrings' to misrepresent the product.
We are NOT haters of WL. WE don't have conflict of interest. Education is our objective.WL products have lost all its uses. And it is due to the greed of the agents and the companies and the ignorance of consumers that WL is still around.To gratify their greed today insurance agents or consultants are stooping to unethical means to con the consumers resulting in money no enough or protection no enough. This fact is borne out by MAS statistics that even after centuries of insurance selling by the "noble insurance agents" people are still grossly under insured and unable to retire. MAS found out that it has been due CONFLICT OF INTEREST.The deputy MD of MAS in his address to LIA urged that this must be changed and the commission must be replaced by fairer way of remuneration to avoid conflcit of interest.. Averagely people with small family need at least $500K to address dependent replacement income but unfortunately they have about $100K only. (MAS's statistics)
I rest my case.; November 19, 2008 10:08 AM
Anonymous said...: We will see lapses in the year to come. The outlook is so gloomy.
The first to come under the axe should be this stupid revosave. It is is completely useless product that it doesn't make any financial sense to keep it.In fact it a big drain on your finance.Don't have to look twice. Just throw into the toilet bowl and flush it.
Maybe to lodge a complaint against whoever agent who sold it to you and get a refund of all premium paid based on misrepresentation. You were definitely mis-s-sold.; November 19, 2008 1:39 PM
Anonymous said...: so much about wholelife and ILP? So if a good consultant was to recommend a product to address to coverage, what do you suggest? Term plan? Please do share!

I understand partly what you trying to address, maybe about the poor yield etc but wholelife is not entirely an investment tools, it wil only become an investment tools if no claims involve after year.. so during the early years it is just a risk transfer tools. if it is really so suck, can you advise what is a better risk transfer tools if any death, TPD and CI happen in the early years, and does this tools guaranteed your premium after some late years.

Lastly, just a simple question if it is a scam, why MAS approve the product to be retail? MAS not doing their job, or they are part of the scam too? Or you lack some bigger view to understand how economic works?

Hope to hear suggestion! any kind!

jack; November 25, 2008 2:08 PM
zhummmeng said...: Jack,
In the early years your concern is
ENOUGH coverage , right?. Can whole life give you enough coverage ? Put it in another way, can you AFFORD enough to cover your risk. If you are an adviser, what is the right thing to do?. Cover yourself enough right away or wait till you have more money to buy more WL? Ask yourself what is the purpose of insurance. To reward insurance agents for filling forms for you or to make sure your risk is COMPLETELY COVERED?
Next, what is the best product which lets you be covered enough, cheaply and effectively so that when you die your family can recieve $500K or a million so that they can continue to live as if you are around?
Lock your premium and it is guaranteed.You mean your agents told otherwise? If he or she said that sack him or her immediately.
MAS already said they don't care about the product.Did they care about the Minibond or structured products?
WLs are scam. Why? they give you the least when you need most.. YOu pay a lot to get so little.Have you any idea how much you get after 35 years? This doesn't make economic sense to you or it does to you?. I wonder what you understand about economics?
Is MAS doing the job? They are doing rubbish. If you are following the minibomb saga you should know whether they are doing the right thing or not.
What bigger view? I know the FIs , the agents , the insurers,and MAS have conflict of interest.Does this answer your question?

PS. please read my above discourse on WL; November 25, 2008 9:13 PM
Anonymous said...: please don't get caught by these toxic products. they are rooten sold by greedy despicable agents; November 26, 2008 9:48 AM