Thursday, August 28, 2008

Understanding Twisting and Churning

http://ezinearticles.com/?Life-Insurance-Fraud---Understanding-Churning-And-Twisting&id=782681

There are two types of life insurance fraud carried out by unscrupulous agents you should be aware of. The two closely related types of insurance scams are known as churning and twisting.
How do those agents carry them out and what do you do if you're a victim? Make sure you know these before you get scammed!

The fraudulent practice of making an insured drain one life insurance policy in other to fund another new policy is called churning. Important information about the full consequence of their action is dishonestly withheld by the agent involved.

Closely related to this is twisting. In twisting the policy holder is tricked to drain funds to buy another policy from another life insurance carrier. Run; don't walk if an agent promises you a new policy that will give you more coverage without increasing your premium. It's a scam so beware!

It's only when they get bills for new premiums that victims find out that something really was wrong. For some it could take up to two years before they find out.

Now is there anything you can do if you've been so scammed? But can a person get more coverage without increasing their premium?

For those who've been scammed there's help and for those who want more for less, there's a way. For those who've been ripped off, you can get help from your state's department of insurance or its equivalent. (In Singapore, you can complain to the Monetary Authority of Singapore).

Just a visit their website and you'll find resources that will help you. You can also call if you prefer that. Many reputable insurance companies will quickly compensate you once it's established that you were a victim of such fraud. You just have to contact their main office directly and not a branch.

2 comments:

zhummmeng said...

CHURNING !!!,isn't this what ntuc agents are doing with revosave and vivolife?
Customers are deceived into a scam called "buy one get one free" which involves draining the cashbacks from revosave to fund vivolife, a limited payment whole life product. The test is , do the customers benefit in term of enhancement? Any idiot with some mathematical skill can tell you the customers do not and are losers.On top of it , it is very disadvantageous to the buyers to have 2 policies tied together.Any thing can go wrong. If revosave goes wrong the parasitic vivolife is in trouble.
Who benefits from from this scam?
The answer is obvious; the insurance salesmen or the senior financial consultants earn 2 HIGH commissions from the sale package.
MAS must stop this type of dealing if it wants fair dealing outcome. Prosecution of errant agents must be meted out otherwise they may think MAS is a toothless tiger or NATO.
The consumers must be wary of this unethical practice.

zhummmeng said...

Sometimes I wonder what is the authority doing? Sleeping ? condoning? conflict of interest?
A layman like me has information to all the ongoings in the market place. What about them? Surely they have eyes and ears planted everywhere; surely they have intelligence unit to monitor...or is their attitude like the 3 monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil speak no evil?

Blog Archive