I have often been asked by consumers, "Mr. Tan, I find it so confusing that insurance agents keep introducing new products to me, explaining the risks that I face. How do I know which is a good product to buy?"
I am too polite to tell them what I honestly think. Here is my frank answer.
1. You will be cheated of 40% of your hard earned savings. If your savings should accumulate to $500,000 by the time you retire, the insurance policy will take away $200,000 from you.
2. If you buy the right insurance, you should give away $50,000 and keep $450,000 for your retirement.
3. You deserve to be cheated, because you are too lazy to attend a talk (www.fisca.sg/events) or too stingy to pay $30 for a talk or to pay $12 to buy a book (www.tankinlian.com/ishop).
4. You only need to spend 1% of your annual income on insurance. The best form of savings and investment are taught in the FISCA talk or in my book. Learn now, how to take care of your own financial future. Spend the time and a few dollars.
5. The life insurance companies will keep introducing new products to catch the naive consumers. Their insurance agents are trained to keep selling new products to you, so they can earn the commission and the insurer can make more profits from the new products and the old products that are being replaced.
I am too polite to tell them what I honestly think. Here is my frank answer.
1. You will be cheated of 40% of your hard earned savings. If your savings should accumulate to $500,000 by the time you retire, the insurance policy will take away $200,000 from you.
2. If you buy the right insurance, you should give away $50,000 and keep $450,000 for your retirement.
3. You deserve to be cheated, because you are too lazy to attend a talk (www.fisca.sg/events) or too stingy to pay $30 for a talk or to pay $12 to buy a book (www.tankinlian.com/ishop).
4. You only need to spend 1% of your annual income on insurance. The best form of savings and investment are taught in the FISCA talk or in my book. Learn now, how to take care of your own financial future. Spend the time and a few dollars.
5. The life insurance companies will keep introducing new products to catch the naive consumers. Their insurance agents are trained to keep selling new products to you, so they can earn the commission and the insurer can make more profits from the new products and the old products that are being replaced.
True blue honest competent financial planners won't call on you because there is a new product, only salesmen.
ReplyDeleteSalesmen need new products to charge themselves up or as an excuse to call on their trusting clients who are naive to believe them. Planning doesn't work this way.
The insurance companies are sneaky and insincere and untruthful when they produce so called new products which are old products with new wrappers. Eg. Living products became limited payment products with some wrappers like accidental , terminal benefits, unemployment benefits which are used to divert the attention or the focus on the rotten core benefits. To make things worse the insurers make them complicated so that a conman agent is needed to 'explain' the complexities. In so doing the conman agent can do, say anything, half truth to CONvince the customers. This is the despicability of the insurers. Fair dealing or putting the clients' interest first is sham. The truth it is to make money using the greedy insurance agents and incentivise them with high commission so that agents will be brave enough to say anything or lie to con the customers.
This is the state of the industry. As MAS is in the process of banning product incentives to agents ALL the insurance companies are engaging aggressively the agents with high incentives to make them push the desired products.THE CONSUMERS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS THAT AGENTS ARE PUSHING AGGRESSIVELY PRODUCTS BECAUSE THEY WILL RECIEVE EXTRA COMMISSION. Usually these products are rotten and throwing extra incentive to make the agents lie harder and con you into buying.You will regret.
The best protection for consumers against these agents and their companies is to wait for the direct channel to be set up when consumers need not pay commission instead they will be given a big discount as much as 120% of the premium of the products. This is big saving. Why should you pay to agents for nothing? Product salesmen give you nothing...NO value add to your financial life.
Be patient and you will be rewarded.