PRUDENTIAL SAVINGS SAGA

[akwl88]

Quote:

My dad bought this prudential savings plan twenty years back and he was supposed to get 40k+ this year during March. However, they've only sent my dad a cheque for 20k+ (the initial investment is 30k+).
My family went up to the prudential office to lodge a complain and to enquire as to why the company isn't giving the full sum as promised on the contract. The company dismissed my dad with a convenient ******** excuse " our company isn't earning much so that's the sum you'll have ".
Is this ethically right? What's the point for anyone to save with prudential if you're going to make a loss in the end after 20 years? That money could've been many times more if my dad invested in other financial instruments and inflation.
Is there any case if we were to sue them? My parents are just Hawkers, I don't understand why you've to make the old generation suffer so much
Update: it's an endowment plan.
Update2 : there has been no withdrawal made and payment has been made regularly since 1994. The agent who sold this policy to my dad is no longer in prudential so it's more troublesome too. I've also attached another pic regarding the loss of $ (which I've no idea what it is)
Update3: Hi there! Didn't expect to receive so much help from everyone. I've already sent the documentations to my friends who're from diff insurance agencies and they're looking into it to see if they're able to help I've also translated the knowledge I've learnt from everyone to my dad but we'll have to wait till Monday to see how the situation unfolds (I was told that someone from prudential will be contacting us, we don't know how it'll go but we'll see).
For those who're not providing any useful advice at all and is attacking my dad and I, please know that none of us expected this to happen. The term insurance is a very new concept to him in the 90s. Just because you're literate now doesn't mean that everyone is back then in the 90s. Your parents could've bought similiar policies for their retirement plan back then, and they could've ended up in a similiar fate if they've an unethical agent whose mind is prob only on their KPI, serving them.
Once again, thanks everyone for your advice and concern regarding the situation and I really appreciate it. Have a great weekend ahead!

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10212257868059052&id=1148565824&pnref=story

 

[Lewis.T]

$500 out of $1337 per year for 23 years going into riders and he wonders why he only gets 20k back.

I don't see any saga.

 

[soneat]

$500 out of $1337 per year for 23 years going into riders and he wonders why he only gets 20k back.

I don't see any saga.

That's the thing. Most people don't know what they are buying.

 

[kannis_ng]

3000 agents just joined 啊viva
frim

 

[akwl88]

That's the thing. Most people don't know what they are buying.

and then agent called themselves "financial advisors"

 

[soneat]

and then agent called themselves "financial advisors"

Looks like prudential also cut the terminal bonus substantially.

 

[Perisher]

$500 out of $1337 per year for 23 years going into riders and he wonders why he only gets 20k back.

I don't see any saga.

You are only right in the rider part. And I agree with you, but only if the endowment is not linked to it. It's a rider and people pay for it thinking it's part of the endowment, and that it's simple to understand why especially when it's linked that way.
Note that you are expecting normal folks to understand insurance, as well as you did now, 23 years back.

Whatever happen to the on maturity part, one would receive $42k?
Note, it didn't say projected.

You see, you ain't there when the policy was discussed. How did you even know there is no saga? Do you know what was being discussed all those years back? Based on the black and white?
Even the black and white has some element of controversy, perhaps that's why wordings are changed over the years?

 

[Lewis.T]

You are only right in the rider part. And I agree with you, but only if the endowment is not linked to it. It's a rider and people pay for it thinking it's part of the endowment, and that it's simple to understand why especially when it's linked that way.
Note that you are expecting normal folks to understand insurance, as well as you did now, 23 years back.

Whatever happen to the on maturity part, one would receive $42k?
Note, it didn't say projected.

You see, you ain't there when the policy was discussed. How did you even know there is no saga? Do you know what was being discussed all those years back? Based on the black and white?
Even the black and white has some element of controversy, perhaps that's why wordings are changed over the years?

Don't know how they structured the B.I back then, but I am quite certain they would have had the 42k broken down into guaranteed and non guaranteed with clauses.

There is no saga because this is not an exceptional case. This series of events probably only happened because the father was ill-informed (agent's fault or he could have forgotten).

Being ill-informed or clients forgetting what their plan does is unfortunately quite common in this industry, but it doesn't constitute a 'saga'.

Also why are we arguing about semantics here?

The crux is his plan underwent 3 major financial crises, and the insurer deemed that the policies at that period of time could not receive bonuses. I don't see this as a very odd decision to make if I were to run a company.

To shed a little perspective, AIG went bust because of one of the crisis.

 

[soneat]

Not sure if there's a correlation but for insurers with multiple par funds/sub funds, the bonus seems to be more volatile. Par fund size matters I guess.
Income/GE-Single Par fund. So far didn't heard of cuts (Or significant cuts)
AIA-Multiple Par fund. Cut until . . .

 

[Perisher]

Don't know how they structured the B.I back then, but I am quite certain they would have had the 42k broken down into guaranteed and non guaranteed with clauses.

There is no saga because this is not an exceptional case. This series of events probably only happened because the father was ill-informed (agent's fault or he could have forgotten).

Being ill-informed or clients forgetting what their plan does is unfortunately quite common in this industry, but it doesn't constitute a 'saga'.

Also why are we arguing about semantics here?

The crux is his plan underwent 3 major financial crises, and the insurer deemed that the policies at that period of time could not receive bonuses. I don't see this as a very odd decision to make if I were to run a company.

To shed a little perspective, AIG went bust because of one of the crisis.

Whether a case is exceptional isn't the point to a saga. But that's not important. Anyway, if the prudential agent misled the client, then it's a saga.

You missed the point. It's not about the 3 major crisis. It's about the maturity of the policy will receive $42k.
It's about the people who may not understand the riders ain't really invested.
It's about the way the whole policy is structured.

People can understand there is 3 major crisis but as someone who project a 23 year plan, shouldn't they take into account that there is gonna be a few major crisis? Are their returns fair?
Taking the index into comparison?

If prudential has many plans that doesn't perform better than index after 23 years, isn't it better they quit the whole investing thing altogether? How long more, how many chances more should we give these insurance people?

The crux of the matter is, insurance companies ain't that good at investing aka ilp/endowment plans etc. They mostly unperformed the index. Even after decades... Most plans fail to rise above index. Why do they even offer such plans?

Take off the insurance identity and look at the whole thing as a neutral.
If you think that most people would agree ilp/endowment etc's returns is a good way to save/invest. Then you don't understand your clients.

Can insurance companies boost they consistently beat the index with more than 70% of their plans aka manage the money better than a simple RSP index plan? No, then what are they trying to do?

It's decades, nobody have time to live so many decades for insurance companies to get their investment right.

2cent.

 

[oceanicmanta]

Whatever happen to the on maturity part, one would receive $42k?
Note, it didn't say projected.

it actually says "You WILL receive $42k"

not sure if that page forms part of the contract, or if there were caveats on this statement

very dubious indeed

 

[koja6049]

it actually says "You WILL receive $42k"

not sure if that page forms part of the contract, or if there were caveats on this statement

very dubious indeed

top part of the page says sum assured: 20k

 

[Bigoya]

Quote:

My dad bought this prudential savings plan twenty years back and he was supposed to get 40k+ this year during March. However, they've only sent my dad a cheque for 20k+ (the initial investment is 30k+).
My family went up to the prudential office to lodge a complain and to enquire as to why the company isn't giving the full sum as promised on the contract. The company dismissed my dad with a convenient ******** excuse " our company isn't earning much so that's the sum you'll have ".
Is this ethically right? What's the point for anyone to save with prudential if you're going to make a loss in the end after 20 years? That money could've been many times more if my dad invested in other financial instruments and inflation.
Is there any case if we were to sue them? My parents are just Hawkers, I don't understand why you've to make the old generation suffer so much
Update: it's an endowment plan.
Update2 : there has been no withdrawal made and payment has been made regularly since 1994. The agent who sold this policy to my dad is no longer in prudential so it's more troublesome too. I've also attached another pic regarding the loss of $ (which I've no idea what it is)
Update3: Hi there! Didn't expect to receive so much help from everyone. I've already sent the documentations to my friends who're from diff insurance agencies and they're looking into it to see if they're able to help I've also translated the knowledge I've learnt from everyone to my dad but we'll have to wait till Monday to see how the situation unfolds (I was told that someone from prudential will be contacting us, we don't know how it'll go but we'll see).
For those who're not providing any useful advice at all and is attacking my dad and I, please know that none of us expected this to happen. The term insurance is a very new concept to him in the 90s. Just because you're literate now doesn't mean that everyone is back then in the 90s. Your parents could've bought similiar policies for their retirement plan back then, and they could've ended up in a similiar fate if they've an unethical agent whose mind is prob only on their KPI, serving them.
Once again, thanks everyone for your advice and concern regarding the situation and I really appreciate it. Have a great weekend ahead!

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10212257868059052&id=1148565824&pnref=story

How many threads do we need to clone for 1 incident?

 

[lifeishard]

Last time contract never say non guaranteed....if TS got time and does not mind writing in to MAS, prudential etc...trust me...prudential will deliver extra cheques to you.

 

[soneat]

Usually only the Policy Schedule, Policy Endorsements (if any), Policy Wordings and Application Form forms part of legal contract. The portion on bonus will be in the Policy Contract.

 

[Shion]

Buy only what you know

 

[soneat]

Most people rely on what friends/relatives/forum says, what agents says and sign up for some plans and don't even know what they have signed up for. When expectations vs reality mismatches years down the road, then finger pointing starts.

 

[Lewis.T]

Whether a case is exceptional isn't the point to a saga. But that's not important. Anyway, if the prudential agent misled the client, then it's a saga.

You missed the point. It's not about the 3 major crisis. It's about the maturity of the policy will receive $42k.
It's about the people who may not understand the riders ain't really invested.
It's about the way the whole policy is structured.

People can understand there is 3 major crisis but as someone who project a 23 year plan, shouldn't they take into account that there is gonna be a few major crisis? Are their returns fair?
Taking the index into comparison?

If prudential has many plans that doesn't perform better than index after 23 years, isn't it better they quit the whole investing thing altogether? How long more, how many chances more should we give these insurance people?

The crux of the matter is, insurance companies ain't that good at investing aka ilp/endowment plans etc. They mostly unperformed the index. Even after decades... Most plans fail to rise above index. Why do they even offer such plans?

Take off the insurance identity and look at the whole thing as a neutral.
If you think that most people would agree ilp/endowment etc's returns is a good way to save/invest. Then you don't understand your clients.

Can insurance companies boost they consistently beat the index with more than 70% of their plans aka manage the money better than a simple RSP index plan? No, then what are they trying to do?

It's decades, nobody have time to live so many decades for insurance companies to get their investment right.

2cent.

I'm curious to know how you come to the conclusion that such plans are designed to beat the index?

The aim is preservation with 1-4% growth for people who are unwilling or not financially literate enough to enter investments and make a profit. What they want is the guaranteed amount plus any extra when given, I don't think anyone is expecting 6%+ returns when they get into such plans. Most also feel the coverage is a bonus, they don't actually want the coverage.

We could also discuss the impact of CI and ECI waivers attached to plans which waive of future premiums upon diagnosis of one of the above. These are low cost riders. These are things that an investment will never provide, but somehow or other people always just look at absolute returns when trying to compare the two.

 

[nautilus]

Expect more of such cases in the future. There's no other more ingenious money making scheme than endowments, ILP, life policy. Package insurance together with other financial investments that the buyer doesn't know about to give them a false security that they are buying into insurance, pay your downlines whatever you want, pay exhorbitent fund management fees to your fund managers, and leave scraps to the buyers on the excuse of bad years.... simply genius.

It's like handling your monies to a stranger to manage and getting back less at the end of the day.

The industry here needs a real overhaul. Insurers should condense all the BI, T/Cs into a single, simple to understand context. But oh wait, this will mean it will be more difficult to mislead people so why take the effort to do that.......

 

[Alpha_Hippo]

If die can claim is good , insurance where got buy for retirement planning one. Only goondus and lazy assholes do that