One or twice a month, I'll get a phone call asking for a fee-based financial planning service.  I was always asked what is the procedure involved. So instead of repeating myself so many times, I decided to just put the procedure on my website on the left menu. Hope that this is clear for all to see.

It is well known that currently capital protected funds are selling well. However, I’ll personally not invest in those. A capital protected funds comes in different forms. Besides the usual structured products, it may come in the form of single premium endowment policy.  Here are the reasons:

Here are the performance of the various life insurers' par fund extracted from their benefit illustrations:

Here is another insurance quotes for wholelife which I was asked to quote but I also post it here for transparency sake:

Quotes based on female, next age 40, non-smoker.

Someone email me asking me to quote some wholelife insurance policies. I decided to post the quotations in my blog since I already have the quote generated for that person.  Here is the table I generated. For the past few months, there have been a number of changes to the premiums partly due to competition and partly due to changes to taxation rules on life fund. Premium are accurate as on now but always subjected to changes without notice.

The quotation is based on female, next age 27, non-smoker. The coverage is death, TPD (before age 65) and critical illness.

A few things to note:

1.  Only premium for Aviva's IdealLiving21 is guaranteed. In Singapore, premium for whole life policy providing cover for critical illness is not guaranteed and could rise in future. The exception is Aviva's IdealLiving
2. NTUC Income's VivoLife protection for the first 15 years is 1.25x of the sum assured; death due to accidental reason is 3x of the sum assured; unemployment waiver benefit as stated in the benefit illustration
3. UOB Life's Maxi Life V (With CI Shield) protection for the first 15 years is 1.30x of the sum asssured; death due to accidental reason is 3.5x of the sum assured.
4. For all policies quoted above, upon diagnosis of critical illness, the sum assured plus any bonuses will be paid out and thereafter the policy cease and there is no further coverage.

I hope through these few data points, this small blog entry can promote a little bit of transparency for consumers. I wrote this blog entry after reading a frustrated IFA blog entry here: http://akhiat.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-agent-for-his-own-interest.html

In my personal opinioin, TM Asia Life Legacy is valued for money.

I had always advocate the use of full fact find to fully understand the client's needs. This has worked for many clients. But there are times that I will also go on product advice. This happens when the client is uninterested in full fact find. In this case I'll do product advice. Let's say for investment, I'll recommend good products which in my opinion are worth considering on the merit of the product itself. Therefore, I'll not hesistant to email or mass email these good products to my clients and friends. I'll not email or mass email products which I think it is lousy. Actually, I wish I can post lousy products on my blog and tell others why I think they are lousy. Have tried before and got myself into trouble (long story). So these days, I'll tell others what is good but refrain from recommending what is bad. In this way, I stay out of trouble.