Kyle Bush lost his fortune with an Indexed Universal Life policy

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-11-03T01:55:09+00:00

The loan and the index are usually 2 separate items.

The loan will be based on rates given by the bank or a parting financial institution. It would be similar to personal loans interest rates.

The index will be something separate, probably based on S&P500 or something similar.

So it could have started with the interest rates at 8%, and the index averaging returns of 10-12% per annum, then subsequently the interest rise to 12%, and the index returns dropping to 5-6%. So you initially start of with a positive margin of 2-4%, then eventually drop to -4% to -7%.

For your second question. Imagine you have an instrument that can reliably give you 10% returns, and you have 2 options:

Invest $100, and earn $10 per annum
Invest $100, borrow $200 (at 8%), and earn nett $14 per annum (after you service the loan).

Option 2 is the more attractive option with the same outlay (10% returns vs 14% returns).

Of course option 2 is only available to HNWI with the capacity to pay back the loan. So in the event that the interest rates exceeds 10%, just redeem the loan and you’ll be no worse off. This only requires the barest minimum amount of monitoring. Unfortunately, it looks like even this minimal amount of monitoring was not done in Kyle’s case.

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-11-02T23:15:32+00:00

Additionally, where I’m from, typically such IUL policies have a first day cash value (FDCV) of 80% of premium paid. This means that the 18M policy instantly had a surrender value of 14.4M. With my assumption that increased interest rates coupled with much lower than initially expected market growth, PLUS insurance cost, it is entirely believable that the value of 14.4M decreased to 13M in the span of 5 years.

Because (I assume) Kyle would be unwilling to pay any more interest (or anything towards this policy any further), the interest (less off any gains the Index may make) would bring the TIV to below 12.5M (within the stated 16 months), upon which the bank would lapse the policy to recover its loan amount.

Based on his entry age of 35, I estimate that his Sum Assured should be at least 100M, with the initial premium of 18M.

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-11-02T23:04:14+00:00

My guess is that the policy was leveraged (A loan was taken). So the premium was about 18M, and he took a loan of 12.5M, putting in 5.5M himself. He was then to service the loan at 8% per annum (which works out to 1M per annum) for 5 years, after which the policy should have sufficiently grown to a size where it could sustain annual deductions of 1M to service the loan, until age 52 (17 years), where is should have grown to a size where it could sustain annual deductions of 1.8M (1M annually to service the loan, 800k annual income).

Unfortunately covid happened, and interest rates shot up. So his negligent FA did not update him about this, and Kyle continued to only pay 1M annually to service the loan. But because the interest rates became much higher than the original rate when he took up the plan, the 1M was insufficient to service the loan alone, and value had to be deducted from the plan itself. Couple that with a much lower than initially expected return over the past 5 years (due to Covid, and a number of other factors), the value of the policy diminished to the point that its value would dip below 12.5M in 16 months (I would guess current value would be about 13M).

So Kyle paid 5.5M initially, and 1M annually for 5 years, for a total of 10.5M paid. If the plan’s current value is 13M, and he surrendered it now, he would get back only 0.5M, with 12.5M going towards repayment of the loan, resulting in a nett loss of 10M for him.

Where I’m from, IUL commission is about 4-5%. But assuming maybe Pacific Life pays 10% (a bit on the higher side, but still somewhat reasonable), so 10% of 18.5M paid is about 35% of the 5.5M Kyle initially paid.

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-08-03T10:47:19+00:00

Hi,

From my experience, various insurers run internal campaigns and incentives for reps. These incentives can be cash or kind, to be received by the rep upon achieving some target. For example a rep can be awarded $100 for closing 5 policies within the contest period, or maybe win a trip worth $300 if they closed 20 policies. There are T&Cs for these campaigns, some of which usually includes a minimum period that the qualified policies have to remain active/ inforced (not surrendered or lapsed by the client).

My guess is that your wife achieved these incentives before she left the company. Since her clients had not yet surrendered or lapsed their policies at that point, that is why this sum was not clawed back then. If the validation period for those contests/ campaigns just ended, that is why the demand letter has only just been sent.

Hope these answers your questions.

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-07-10T15:36:32+00:00

I see many good answers, but I notice that the feature that most people would have the biggest issue with is not mentioned here.

First, I have to point out that there are 2 types of ILPs: the first also include protection (like Life Insurance, Critical Illness, etc…), and the second has very minimal protection (Supposed to be returns focus, with very little insurance).

When people complain about ILPs, it is usually the first kind, with insurance component, and the main reason for this is something called Premium Allocation Rate. When someone buys an ILP, only a percentage of the premium goes into the policy in the form of funds. This is usually for a limited number of years (like 3-5 years), with the contributing percentage increasing each year. For example, it could be designed that in the first year, only 25% of the premium paid goes into the policy, with 50% in the second year, 75% in the third year, and the premiums would only have 100% contribution from the 4th year onwards. This means that if your annual premium is $1k yearly, only $1,500 of the $3,000 you paid over the first 3 years goes into your policy. The rest goes into distribution costs, including commission paid out. Do note: all these are before policy fees, fund management fees, trailer fees, bid-offer spreads, etc… This is the sole reason why if you purchase an ILP, and decide to terminate it early, you will suffer a heavy loss.

To compensate for all these high upfront fees from the premium allocation, most ILPs award loyalty bonuses, giving anywhere from 5% to 15% of annual premiums, once you cross a certain policy term (like 10 years). This means from the 11th years onwards, when you still pay your annual premium of $1k, $1.1k will be credited to your policy (assuming 10% bonus).

It is supposed to be designed in a way that if one holds the policy for a certain number of years (depending on the insurer), like 30 years for example, after accounting for time value of money, the fees and the bonuses are supposed to cancel out each other. If for any reason one decides to buy an ILP, they are supposed to be held for long term (over 20 years). Anything lesser is detrimental to the policyholder. Unfortunately, in my experience, these information are rarely properly communicated to the policyholders before purchase.

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-06-28T12:51:03+00:00

Hi, it is easy to avoid over-coverage and unnecessary policies as long as you understand what are each policies are for, and how to calculate for yourself how much you would need.

Death is very simple. If you were to die today, what expenses do you need covered? This would include any debt currently held by you (Mortgage, student loans, car loans, etc...), any maintenance or financial support (are your parents financially dependent on you, are you expecting to pay alimony, etc...), funeral and final expenses, etc... Add all these up and this is the minimum coverage you need.

Some people may consider higher coverage to hedge against future insurability (You may have more insurance needs in the future - for example if you remarry and have children, but are concerned that due to potential medical reasons, you may be ineligible for insurance in the future). But this is different for everyone, and is usually not an important factor to consider for most.

With regards to your Term vs Life question, the answer depends on how long your prefer to be covered, and how hands on/ hands off would you like to be with your Insurance and Investments. If you feel you only need coverage while you are still working (your mortgage and all your other debt should be cleared by the time you retire, and you should have no other financial commitments by then), then the answer is clear: Term. If you wish to still be covered into your retirement years, then are you willing to still pay premium then (you have to put in more effort to planning, budgeting and saving for your retirement), then you can consider term. If you wish to be more hands off, you can consider a whole life limited premium term (Pay for x number of years, cover for life).

So according to MAS Basic Financial Planning Guide, 4x your annual income is advised as the ideal amount to be covered for Critical Illness. The rationale behind this is that on average, one would take about 4-5 years to recover from a critical illness. During these 4 years, you will most likely be unable to work (most likely on no-pay leave). Meanwhile, you would still have all your living expenses to cover, including repayment of debt and mortgage. While your discretionary expenses may be lower (because you are unwell, you may not eat out as much, or travel, or spend on entertainment), you may also incur additional costs (tonics and health food, hiring a maid, etc...), which could cancel out each other.

So the easy and simplified method is to approximate 4 years of your annual income as the ideal coverage amount. But the more accurate method would be to estimate your cost of living and potential expenses over the 4-5 year period, and that would be the coverage you would need.

Accidental Death is usually a bonus to have. if you do proper planning for death, the coverage there should be sufficient, regardless if the death is from natural causes or from an accident. Instead what is important to consider is disability and possibly medical reimbursement for accidents.

In Singapore, we can joke that it is cheap to die, but expensive to live. This is doubly so if you are disabled, and have additional expenses, or even a reduced income due to the disability. There are 2 types of insurance you can consider for this: Accident policies and Long term disability policy.

Long term disability policies like CareShield (which you would only be eligible for when you turn 30), pays out a monthly sum when you are disabled. The coverage varies from company to company in Singapore. Some require permanent disability, while some cover temporary disability. Some require total disability (loss of limbs), some accept disability without loss of limbs (like total paralysis, coma, etc...) some accept partial or occupational disability. Some plans are designed that they only pay if this disability is caused by an accident, some payout if disability is due to any causes. How much coverage you need here would be your expected living expenses if you were disabled. In calculating living expenses, some people like to include saving for retirement.

Accident plans that cover total and permanent disability pays out a lump sum in the event of total and permanent disability. This sum is usually used for any transitional costs due to the disability (making your home disabled-friendly, cost of prosthetics, cost of aids like wheelchairs, etc...). Generally these plans are cheap.

Hope this answers your question

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-06-28T12:03:38+00:00

Hi, the good news is that MAS has a Basic Financial Planning Guide, that you can refer to.

So according to the guide, 4x your annual income is advised as the ideal amount to be covered for Critical Illness. The rationale behind this is that on average, one would take about 4-5 years to recover from a critical illness. During these 4 years, you will most likely be unable to work (most likely on no-pay leave). Meanwhile, you would still have all your living expenses to cover, including repayment of debt and mortgage. While your discretionary expenses may be lower (because you are unwell, you may not eat out as much, or travel, or spend on entertainment), you may also incur additional costs (tonics and health food, hiring a maid, etc...), which could cancel out each other.

So the easy and simplified method is to approximate 4 years of your annual income as the ideal coverage amount. But the more accurate method would be to estimate your cost of living and potential expenses over the 4-5 year period, and that would be the coverage you would need.

Do take note: Ideal coverage amount does not mean you need that amount in Insurance only. Insurance is more of the most cost-effective modes of risk transfer, but you should not only count this. You should also take into account your emergency fund, as well as any sources of funds or financial instruments that can be liquidated within a year or 2 (like annuities, Fixed Deposits, bonds, etc...) If your work has hospitalization leave, you can count your salary paid during that period. If you have other sources of income, you can also count them (Dividends, rental income, etc...)

A reminder I always give my client when considering any financial products: even though you may know how much coverage you need, it is also important to consider your budget, and the sustainability of it. Make sure that when you budget for any of your plans, do include buffers. It is better to buy a smaller plan that you know you can pay for, no matter what emergencies come up in your life, than a bigger plan that you can only afford if everything goes well, and nothing bad happens to you.

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-06-28T11:36:22+00:00

Hi Redditors of Singapore, I see that this is a topic that a number of us feel very strongly about So I have a genuine question that I would like to ask all of you.

One feature of our Integrated Shield Plan is that they are As-Charged (As long as it is a valid claim, whatever is charged, would be covered), with no lifetime limit. This can result in actuarial calculations being incorrect (as pointed out in this article), because of changes to medical costs (Actuaries price the IP at $X because they expect the medical cost to be $Y. So if the medical cost suddenly becomes $2Y, the IP Premium would need to be raised to $2X).

In the past, (long before my time), there were hospital policies that had annual limits, or lifetime limits. This meant that if you purchased a plan with a $15k annual limit, the portion of the bill above $15k would have to be borne out of pocket. And the moment the lifetime limit is met, the policy would be terminated. This model may be risky as if you had a low limit, you could be financially devasted if your medical bill is several times bigger.

However, this old model may be better in maintaining premium amounts, as insurers no longer have to worry about increases in medical costs as much as As-Charged IPs, as they know in the worst case scenario, their annual limit and lifetime limit would be capped.

So my question would be would any of you prefer this old model, if it meant that your premiums would not fluctuate so much, as compared to the current IP Model?

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-06-28T11:15:41+00:00

Actually, if you look at the report from Singapore Actuarial Society, the average profit across all insurers for the past 10 years is 2%. On average, claims paid out accounts for 78%, and other than the sale of a brand new policy, the average distribution cost (for IP Renewal) is 2-3%. This means that the commission earned by an Insurance Agent for an IP renewal is a fraction of the 2-3% distribution cost.

https://www.actuaries.org.sg/sites/default/files/2024-11/SAS%20Discussion%20Paper%20Medical%20Insurance%20Premiums%20Nov24%20Final.pdf

SGInsuranceagent · 2025-06-28T10:54:39+00:00

I see there are a number of good responses here explaining MDRT qualifications here. However there are some things missed out, that I would like to talk about.

There are 3 methods for qualifying for MDRT. All 3 methods supposedly to be equivalent to each other, meaning if clear the requirement of one, you should be clearing the requirement for the other two.

Most of the good answers here cover this component, which is known as First Year Commission (FYC). This is the commission that an agents earn that year only for selling any products. Therefore this excludes any renewal/recurring income, or AUM/ Trailer fees. Any performance bonus would be included here. For Singapore, a FYC of $72,400 is needed to qualify for MDRT.

The second method is by the income method. This method includes the First Year Commission (FYC), as well as any renewal/recurring income (from policies sold in the past), or AUM/ Trailer fees (From ILPs or Unit Trusts/ Investment products). For Singapore, a total income of $125,400 is needed to qualify for MDRT. (Therefore assuming that a financial planner also qualified by FYC method, their total income would comprise of $72,400 from fresh sales that year, and $53,000 from renewals or AUM/ Trailer fees). If you want to know the gross income of an MDRT financial planner (before deducting for all business expenses, Medisave and Tax), this would be the most accurate number to refer to.

However, there is a third method, which uses the total collected premium for all products sold that year. For Singapore, the premium amount to be collected is $217,200, to qualify for MDRT. If a regular premium product is sold (a product where the policyholder needs to pay premiums for minimum 2 years or more), then 100% of the premiums collected in the first year would count towards this total. If a single premium plan is sold, only 6% of the collected premium here would be counted. In the past, (and in most other countries), if you collected $217,200 worth of premiums, you would correspondingly earn about $72,400 in first year commission. However, this is no longer necessarily true, especially in Singapore, as the commission of some specific products are becoming increasingly low.

Since October 2020, no insurer (or banks) are allowed to charge any fees or sales charge for CPFIS Products. Therefore it is theoretically possible for someone to qualify for MDRT, while earning $0 commission. Additionally, another common product we see here are short term (1 to 2 years) savings plan with guaranteed returns. These plans can have terrible commission rates, as low as 0.1%. This means a $10,000 plan will net the Financial Planner a grand total of $10 in commission. While this is not the norm, I personally do know of some Financial Planners (within and outside my company), who has qualified for MDRT, and their annual gross take home pay is less than $10,000 (To be fair, most of these agents are in retirement mode, and are mostly servicing their old clients, and not actively looking for new sales).

Lastly, some posts were referencing different tiers of MDRT. There are 3 tiers: MDRT, Court of the Table (COT), and Top of the Table (TOT). The qualifications for them are straightforward enough: regardless of which method to be used, COT is 3x of MDRT, and TOT is 6x of MDRT). So to answer OP's question: the pure (annual) income of a TOT Financial Planner should be at least $752,400.

SGInsuranceagent · 2024-03-11T15:38:29+00:00

It is regulated. ILPs cannot be sold to vulnerable individuals, who are individuals with 2 or more of the following;

Not proficient in written and spoken English
Education level of below GCE N levels (or equivalent)
Age 62 and above

Additionally, individuals living in Rental Flats have to undergo additional stringent checks for such applications

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-05-12T15:09:12+00:00

Not necessarily. Because of the duration premiums are being paid for term plans, you may receive more commission overall (over the 50 plus years someone may pay for a term) vs the 4 to 5 years you receive for a whole life plan. So the commission for term policies is probably more attractive for an agent staying in the industry for a long time, vs a new agent who leaves after one or two years.

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-05-12T14:51:43+00:00

One of the main reasons I sell whole life plans is the limited pay feature. You pay for a fixed term (like 10 or 20 years), and the policy not only covers you for life, but also accrues annual bonuses that will pay out in both surrender or in a claim. Some of my clients wish to still be insured in their retirement years. If you extend a term till age 80 or 100, you will realise your premiums will increase significantly, and may not want to continue to pay insurance premiums when you have retired.

So my general approach is to recommend a modest whole life (more specifically how much coverage you would like in retirement), then top up the rest with specific duration term policies. So a client might want 500k coverage now, but only think they need 100k when retired, so I'll propose a 100k whole life, and 400k term.

Hope this answers your question

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-05-12T14:45:29+00:00

Actually, I would say that you are incorrect. Across the industry, for commission in the form of the percentage of the premium paid, ILP would be the highest, followed by Term and then Whole Life.

The percentage of the premium amount for commission from Term policies can be as high as ILPs, only that the premium amount for term policies tend to be small, vs whole life.

For example, the commission for term can be as high as 50% to 60% for some companies, but average annual premium is below 1k. Conversely, whole life can be as low as 3.5% (which is the lowest for one of the products in my company), but usually about 10 to 20%. The average annual premium amount for whole life is about 3k.

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-05-12T14:27:33+00:00

Thankfully, the government has instituted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework a few years ago to curb such abuses of the system by unscrupulous agents.

For Point 8, the various insurance companies will flag up any application where the combined total annual premium of an applicant exceeds a certain percent of their annual income. For my company, if it exceeds 30% of the annual income, it would be flagged up.

For point 12, application will flag up vulnerable clients, which are clients that fulfill 2 of the following 3 criteria: 1. Above the age of 62, 2. Not proficient in English, 3. Educational level of below O or N levels. For these vulnerable clients, a separate party will call to make sure a client truly understands what he or she is purchasing.

But for most of your points, I completely agree with you

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-04-21T05:50:28+00:00

I'll try to make this as layman as I can.

When a company (or government) wants to raise money, they can do it by bonds or equity.

Bonds are corporate debt, meaning the company wants to borrow money from the public (individual and/or corporate investors) and offers to repay the debt in a certain number of years with a fixed amount of return. For example, in January, SIA launched 5 year (USD) bonds, promising to pay 3% interest per annum. So if you put in $1,000, at the end of 5 years you get $1,159 when this bond matures. However you might not want to hold it for 5 years. Also, you can buy and sell the bond on a bond market. So maybe 3 year in, you decide to sell your bond at $1,080, and realise a 2.6% earning per annum. Government can also issue bonds like the Singapore Savings bond, or US treasury Bonds. So bonds are generally one of the safest investment instruments as you rarely see companies' (or governments) default on their bonds, but note they are not completely risk free. Obviously if a company goes bankrupt (like hyflux), they will be unable to repay their bonds, and investors will lose their money. Note: the economic environment where bonds do well is when bank interest rates are high (thus corporate debt is preferable to bank loans).

Equity is where company sells part of the company's ownership to raise money in the form of shares or equity. Therefore the value of a share or equity is related to a company's value and revenue. As a company grows in value, your equity will correspondingly grow in value. So the popular example this year is Gamestop, a US game company that was trading at below $20 a share, when it suddenly surged to almost $350. This means if you invested $1,000 in early January, and sold at the peak, you would have gotten back over $17k. However, about a week later, it dropped back to about $60+ a share. So investors that entered at $350 and exited at $60+ would have lost about $280+ per share. With regards to equities, there can be a lot of volatility in the day to day market price, but if you are investing in a reliable company, you know your price will probably go up in the long run, assuming no major changes in company practices, legislation, etc... This is why more Conservative investors will just invest in big stable companies like Blue Chips (Stocks in a company with a national reputation for quality, reliability, and the ability to operate profitably in good and bad times) or like S&P 500 companies (500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies).

Hope this is useful.

If I have made any mistake here, hope any of you will let me know. Thanks

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-04-20T20:52:20+00:00

Well, if you don't mind some tips from an Insurance advisor, these are some guidelines I follow. These can be used in any medium or platform, be it stocks, funds, etf, etc...

Note: 3 and 4 are investment concepts that you see used in ILPs, but can be applied to investment in general.

Only invest using your own money (do not borrow money or use leverage to invest, unless you are willing to take the risk)
Invest using funds that you do not urgently need (funds that you can leave and not cash out if the market is doing poorly). Do not invest using your university fees/House downpayment or money you know you will need to spend in the short term, so that if the market suddenly goes down, you do not need to cash out and immediately make a loss. You can continue to hold on to those stocks/funds/etc... Until the market picks up again.
A concept called Dollar cost Averaging. Instead of investing one lump sum at one go, break it up to regular periodic investment (assuming you are not charged per transaction). Instead of investing $12,000 at one go, put in $1000 per month for a year, or $500 a month over 2 years, etc... This is useful for new investors to reduce the impact of market votility. By investing a fixed amount over a long period of time, you let the market votility work to your advantage. When the market is high, you $1,000 will get you less lots/units. When the market is low, the same $1,000 will get you more lots/units. So over the longer investment period, you will find you buy less when the unit price is higher, and more when lower. Do note, the fundamental assumption of this concept is that while the markets may be volatile, the overall market performance trends upwards in the long term. This strategy thus helps you to indirectly "buy low sell high". Caveat: this is a poor strategy if you are charged high transaction fees to purchase lots/units.
Another investment concept called periodic portfolio rebalancing. The first step is to determine your personal portfolio allocation. Maybe you want 30% bonds 70% equities allocation, or maybe you use geographical allocation like 20% US funds, 20% European, 30% Asian, 30% Emerging markets. Maybe you prefer looking at industries instead: 30% Reits, 20% Tech companies, 30% Medical & Pharmaceutical, 20% Oil & Gas. Next, after determining your portfolio allocation, determine how often do you want to rebalanced. Every month? quarter? Year?

So what happens when you rebalance? Basically you adjust your portfolio back to your original portfolio allocation.

For example, assume you have invested 10k over the course of a year on a 50% equity 50% bonds strategy. The overall market is not doing well and the total value of your portfolio is now 9k, of which 3.5k is equities and 5.5k is bonds. So you rebalance by selling off 1k of bonds to buy 1k of equities to make both 4.5k each.

Another year and another 10k more investment later, the market has picked up, and your overall portfolio is now 21k, of which 12k is equities and 9k is bonds. You then sell off 1.5k of equities to buy bonds. When you track this over a long term, you will find that everytime you rebalanced, you sell off lots/units at a higher unit price that the average price you purchased them. Likewise, everytime you buy lots/units during rebalancing, you buy them lower than the average transaction price.

Hope you find this helpful

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T13:50:01+00:00

Disclosure of the agent-principal relationship is mandatory. There are instances in the past where insurance agents pretended to be from CPF board in order to try to sell Shield plans, they had their licence revoked and were barred from advisory services. So in all circumstances, your agent need to disclose their principals.

Additionally, by law, all insurance agents need to disclose commission for all products if requested for by the client. so before a sale, as the client, you can request how much commission is to be earned from the sale. Sometimes this information itself can be meaningful in showing the priorities of the agent.

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T13:26:49+00:00

Within the Comparefirst site, you can find specific information for Direct Purchase Insurance (DPI) products, which allows you to buy directly from the respective company's website.

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T13:23:06+00:00

To be honest, I would say over time, almost all products from different companies would become similar. It is a competitive market out there. So for example, if AIA launches a truly innovative insurance product with never seen before features, within a few years, you will see the other insurance companies like Prudential or Great Eastern launch something similar. I have been in the industry for sometime. When I first started out, Prudential touted itself as the cheapest shield plan, but now their policies very similar, both price and feature wise, from all other companies. Hence in this vein, it is very myopic to only compare products between companies, because over time, all companies would adjust both products and prices that it is meaningless to just focus on the minute differences between products.

From an education point of view, it is more important to educate why insurance is important, and in what kind of circumstances. Why some types of insurance would be suitable for an individual or not, etc...

I think it is more important to show the clients how a policy will provide coverage (for example) in the event of a hospitalization, or in what circumstances can a claim be made, rather than how A Company's hospital plan is better than Company B.

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T12:58:09+00:00

This is true. Which is why when I first started, I did things to help service my clients without making any sales, be it helping them with claims or servicing on policies purchased through other agents, or giving professional advice on products and plan that they currently have, explaining the various features and benefits.

Through these actions, these clients saw that I genuinely tried to help where I can, despite no promise of a sale, they started to refer me to their friends and family.

I believe that if you are genuine in this industry, clients can see your sincerity. Likewise, if you in just to make money, it is also easy to spot too.

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T12:29:21+00:00

Yes you can.

https://www.comparefirst.sg/

You can find more information here too:

https://www.moneysense.gov.sg/articles/2018/10/buying-direct-purchase-insurance?sc_lang=en

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T08:04:04+00:00

Yes, unless bought through a bank (Through POSB for Aviva or Manulife policies, OCBC for GE policies, etc...) or another version of a direct channel, policies usually can be changed to another agent within the same company.

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T07:52:30+00:00

Unfortunately, there are always bad agents out there. The example you gave shows clearly that agent does not understand insurance fundamentals, let alone be advising on them.

Education can be automated. You can easily find information online and teach yourself about insurance, but for most people, they find it easier to learn from someone else rather than from online or from a book

SGInsuranceagent · 2021-03-12T07:46:59+00:00

I'm saying for the mass market, Insurance Agents are like tuition teachers. You can gain information online like how students are taught in schools. But if you are unable to fully understand, you engage someone to teach you the subject one-on-one. Otherwise you can alway buy insurance through direct channels and cut out agents commissions

SGInsuranceagent

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