Best Private Healthcare Insurance Company

Zurich Insurance Malaysia Berhad has been awarded “The Best Private Healthcare Insurance Company of the Year 2017” by Frost & Sullivan. We clinched this amazing award with our star products Zurich Active Living, Zurich Omni Health & Zurich MegaMed together with our CSR programme #EatRighttoPlayRight. Stay tuned for more!!! #Omniheath #Activeliving #Megamed

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Maaf Zahir dan Batin. Hari Raya is an occasion for families and friends to spend quality time with each other . Let's celebrate together . Happy Holidays also.

Zurich Omni Health

Zurich Insurance Malaysia Berhad just launch a new Medical Insurance yesterday
It is known as Zurich Omni Health. Tag line , Staying healthy has never been more rewarding.
There are a number of new features such as No Claim Bonus which gives you 10 % cash back on the premium paid.
Wellness reward Programme rewards you as you get better.Health Optimiser ofers discounts to help you stay healthy. Last but not least there is a mobile app that works like your handy personal assistant .

Retirement Disaster looms For Universal Life Policyholders

The insurance industry has a dirty little secret that threatens the retirement plans of millions of unsuspecting families.

The problem is buried in the fine print of universal life policies, widely promoted since the 1980s as a new and improved version of the old-fashioned whole life insurance product our grandparents relied on as the surest way to save for retirement.

Based on my experience as a financial advisor, most people have no idea about what they’ve already lost and will discover in time that there was no “sure” in their insurance. Instead, the insurance companies shifted their risk on to to their policyholders.

The new and improved universal whole life policies were designed to take advantage of high interest rates and growth in stock prices to reduce premiums and boost cash values—the term for the built-in savings component of a life policy.

That was the same argument the financial industry used to kill off the defined-benefit pension plans our grandparents relied on in order to sell a new generation of savers on the idea that 401-Ks had the potential for higher returns. Those higher returns might have come true had the assumptions panned out, but instead they failed in the biggest possible way.

Universal policies became attractive because they offered a higher rate of return (the dividend) on the savings component than one could get from old-fashioned whole life. The trade-off was that, unlike old-fashioned whole life, the effective premiums for the universal policy death benefit rise as the policyholder ages.

The insurance companies set a minimum premium payment based on a policyholder’s age at the time, and then used prevailing returns on stocks and bonds to argue that there would be enough profit on investments to cover both the rising premiums and the guaranteed dividend on the cash value.

In theory, the stock market would pay the added premium costs and the dividends. Millions bought universal life policies on the basis of those projections.

But most skipped the fine print, signed the papers, and squirreled them away in their safe deposit boxes where they’ve been for decades. Hidden in those policies was this potential time bomb: if the projected investment returns fail to materialize, the insurance company can make up the difference by reducing the cash value—taking money out of your cash value savings account—right down to zero, if necessary. And when that’s exhausted, they can require the policyholder to make up the difference in the death benefit premiums, or risk the policy expiring worthless.
Unlike the 1980s and 1990s when many universal policies were sold, today’s interest rates languish at historic lows. In the past 12 years the stock markets have suffered two historic collapses. For those reaching retirement age now—coupled with the housing bust and a crippled economy—this is a recipe for failure, and it’s starting to hit home.

Universal life policyholders who faithfully paid all the minimum premium payments all those years are discovering that the cash values that were to be their retirement nest eggs are nearly exhausted, and many are having to cough up huge payments just to keep the death benefit from lapsing.

For example, people who bought universal life policies when they were in their early thirties, with a $100,000 death benefit, might have faithfully paid minimum premiums of about $3,500 year in and year out thinking all was well and they were building their nest eggs. When they were younger and cheaper to insure, they were–those premiums went into the cash value buckets and earned untaxed dividends.

But as they got older, the “real” premium—the cost of insuring them—rose. A person in his or her late 50s might have a policy whose cost of insurance—the real premiums—have doubled. Five years further on, the real premium could jump to tens of thousands of dollars.

Most policyholders don’t realize they have a problem, until one day they need the cash value or discover that they will be left without even the life insurance.

How we got here is depressingly familiar in an age of financial mis-engineering. Up until the advent of universal whole life, the predominant form of life insurance for the middle class was participating—or mutual—whole life, where policyholders are treated as mutual owners of a non-public insurance company.

In such a policy, premium payments never change and accumulate like cash in a bank account earning modest dividends—guaranteed by the company—that are not taxed. Policyholders can borrow the money they paid in anytime for any purpose, no questions asked, which in turn reduces the death benefit to compensate. Policyholders can repay the loans later and the death benefits go back up again. In effect, policyholders are borrowing from and repaying themselves just as they do with any bank or investment account.

Universal life is a modern invention that takes the “sure” out of insurance by tying the benefits to the performance of stock and bond markets. In contrast, mutual whole life has ancient roots, enduring the millennia because it’s a simple and safe way to grow a nest egg while providing for one’s heirs. The practice of pooling resources this way dates as early as Roman times when people formed burial clubs to pay funeral and living expenses for member families. The earliest mutual life insurance companies in the U.S. date to the 1700s, formed by church groups to benefit their congregants in time of need.

By the mid-twentieth century, the mutual insurance industry had become the Rock of Gibraltar in the financial lives of millions of Americans. Mutual insurance companies invested their members’ premiums so conservatively that the industry survived the Great Depression intact. Those old-fashioned values have persisted and that’s why most mutual insurance companies came through the recent Great Recession with their blue-chip ratings unsullied while publicly-owned stock companies had to be bailed out to avoid bankruptcy.

I know all this because I am a reformed universal life believer. In the 1980s I became successful by helping clients replace their old reliable mutual whole life policies with the new and improved universals. By the 1990s, when some of my clients began to reach retirement age, the hidden flaws showed up when the projections fell below their targets.

I felt betrayed by the companies that had persuaded me that universal life was a better policy because stock markets historically averaged a better return. I wondered what I’d done wrong, so I went back and studied the fine print, discovering that these policies were written to shift risk from the company to the policyholder. Universal life policies allow companies to raise premiums or siphon off cash values if they can’t make enough from investments to meet their costs and still earn a profit.

That uncertainty is exactly the opposite of what whole life is supposed to accomplish—a savings nest egg that will be there no matter what happens.

Universal life policyholders who want to learn where they stand can request from their insurance companies two in-force ledger illustrations: one showing the state of the benefits at the current premium; the other showing the cost to keep a policy in force to age 100.

There are some alternatives and options for universal life policyholders, depending on how insurable they still are and other circumstances. In some cases, it’s possible to keep a policy in force at the current premium by reducing the death benefit.

For those interested in buying the right kinds of life insurance for their situations, start by determining whether a product being offered is from a mutual life insurance company that will be owned by you, or by a stockholder-owned company that is obligated above all to earn a profit for somebody else. Knowing the difference could determine the quality of your retirement.

John E. Girouard is the author of “The Ten Truths of Wealth Creation,” a registered principal of Cambridge Investment Research, and an Investment Advisor Representative of Capital Investment Advisors, in Bethesda, MD.

MAA Holdings Bhd

Its beginning of the New Year 2011. A lot of happening in our MAA Insurance company. The latest annoucement :  MAA Holdings Berhad ("MAAH" or "the Company")

- Search of Strategic Partner
Contents :

MAAH, today entered into an agreement with Zurich Insurance Company Ltd ("Zurich") pursuant to which, the parties will evaluate and negotiate a possible transaction involving the acquisition of an interest in its wholly-owned subsidiary, Malaysian Assurance Alliance Berhad.

MAAH will make the necessary announcements in due course on further developments in relation to the abovementioned.
People from Zurich Insurance Company are here looking at our book and interview and talking to MAA consultants and staffs. Its a busy month for us and a good beginning.

Some of the pictures of us in Switzerland.  

AKPK Debt Management

Last week attend a briefing conduct by AKPK. AKPK stand for Agensi Kaunseling Dan Pengurusan Kredit or known in English as Credit Counselling And Debt Management Agency. Their tag line Make Prudent Financial Management a Way of Life. They provide :

• Financial Education

          Get knowledgeable about managing your finances smartly

• Financial Counselling

          Learn to put into action your financial knowledge by practising positive financial habits daily.

• Debt Management

          Enjoy financial freedom through your determination and discipline
All services are FREE of charge. Their toll free no. 1800-88-2575

AKPK also published this book MONEY $ENSE- Getting Smart With Your Money.Money $ense will open your mind to things you should be prepared for financially when you enter the competitive job market. The book explains what you should start doing early in life to achieve your financial dreams. It aims to ease your financial worries by providing you useful tips to manage your money and plan for the future . This book teaches you how to live well with the need to save and invest for tomorrow into reality

Financial Knowledge crucial

PETALING JAYA: Young adults need to be equipped with the essential financial knowledge to avoid them from falling into “financial trap” that usually snares them at a later stage in life. Statistics from Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) showed that 44% of its debt management programme (DMP) customers were 30 to 40 years old, mainly males (67.9%) and earning below RM36,000 nett a year. Only 16% of the DMP customers were below 30 years old.
Chief executive officer Akwal Sultan said many young adults aged 30 and above came to AKPK when they had lost control of their finances, which might have started at an earlier age. Mohamed Akwal Sultan says young adults should take control of their finances.
“They could have taken control of things earlier if they were aware of the steps needed to lead a prudent lifestyle,” he told StarBiz.
Akwal said although there was a general consensus that young adults had issues in managing their money, especially when it involved credit card, the overall non-performing loan statistics of credit cards was only 1.9%.
“It is only pockets of young adults that have problems with credit cards, contributed mostly by a lifestyle issue,” he said.
Akwal added that only 9.4% of those under the DMP faced credit card problems while 73.5% faced difficulties in managing a combination of debt, which include car loans, credit cards, personal loans and housing loans.
Thus, Akwal said there was a need for a more effective financial education programme for the young generation.
“Although it is currently being taught in schools, it is still not a subject by itself and thus does not have the desired results. At the tertiary level, the need for an effective financial education programme becomes more critical as having graduates savvy in this area will better equip them to handle their finances.
“In short, financial education is a baseline education that all individuals, especially today's young adults, should have,” he said.
National deposit insurer Malaysia Deposit Insurance Corp (PIDM) chief operating officer Md Khairuddin Arshad said sound financial knowledge, particularly about savings and prudent spending, must be inculcated among the young generation.
“Knowledge about deposit insurance should also be part of this foundation, especially as our youths prepare themselves for working life.
Sound financial know ledge, particularly about savings and prudent spending, must be inculcated among the young generation.
“By the time they take up their first job and start a family, they should already be capable of making smart and informed financial decisions and continue to do so throughout their lives,” he said.
OCBC Bank (M) Bhd head of wealth management Ong Shi Jie said the younger generation needed to obtain basic money management skills which included budgeting, the use of credit cards and accounts checking, and the importance of savings.
“In the course of our lives, we will eventually need a credit card, mortgage or a savings account to manage our finances.
“In this regard, it remains strange that the basic skills of managing finances have not been institutionalised into our education system,” she said.
Ong said most young adults fell into the “financial trap” the minute they landed a job because the first thing they normally did was to apply for a credit card.
“This gets them into the vicious cycle of succumbing to all their wants, not needs. So, before they make their first investment or saving, they're saddled with credit card debts and a loan for a depreciating car value.
“It's no wonder why people worry about retirement plans 10 years too late. They're paying for the sins' of their early years,” she said, adding that such financial traps needed to be pre-empted by instilling sensible money management habits in children.
Although Malaysia has one of the highest personal savings rates in the world, Ong said this had been largely driven by Government policies as opposed to a higher level of financial knowledge like in other countries.
“There is definitely room for improvement as far as the current level of financial knowledge among our young adults is concerned,” she said.
In terms of programmes, AKPK's ongoing focus is to provide financial education to post-secondary and tertiary level audiences where numerous financial education programmes are already in place since its inception four years ago.
These include National Service interactive workshops and module infusion in 31 institutions of higher learning. Bank Negara has also recently announced that a new financial capability programme will be launched next year, to be offered by AKPK.
As for PIDM, it has implemented an education programme for secondary school and tertiary students throughout Malaysia as part of its ongoing initiatives to further enhance public understanding of deposit insurance.
PIDM MoneySmart project seeks to instil the habit of savings and prudent financial management among students in schools and higher-learning institutions.
For OCBC, one of its recent initiatives is the OCBC Mighty Savers. For example, its OCBC Mighty Savers Weekend offers basic banking products and services to children at selected branches on every first weekend of the month.
Many young adults seeking advice on debt managementBy SHARIDAN M. ALI sharidan@thestar.com.my

Insurance outlook

A very interesting articles from the Star. The report that all Insurers are in for better times.Life insurance business weighted premium for this year is projected to grow 12.5% to RM3.6 billion. This is attribute to improving economic conditions and the Government's various pump-priming measures. Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) expects a good outlook for the life insurance industry based on last year strong performance compared with 2008 when there was almost no growth due to the financial meltdowns.
The gross domestic product growth (GDP)is forecast at 2% to 3%in 2010. The service sector is also anticipated to expand by 3.6% in 2010. This augurs well for the insurance industry. Usually this industry growth 3 to 4 times of the GDP.
Malaysia's penetration rate of insurance at 41% which was low compared with develop economy. Taiwan and Japan the pentration rate of insurance at 180% and 300% respectively. There are plenty of scope for the industry to grow futher.

MAA Assurance investment plans are doing very well last year. Last year Growth fund, a equity based fund growth by 47% out performed our Bursa Malaysia index. Most of my clients and policyholders are very happy with my services. My strategy this year is to do more investment link plan. This year theme is "Back To Basics". Recruit, Rebuild and Re-Energise.

RISK MANAGEMENT

Where risk exist,a person may wish to manage or ignore the risk .It is obviously unwise to ignore risk as its impact would be disastrous, hence the need for Risk Management is crucial.

The purpose of Risk Management is to devise methods of handing the risks faced by client. Therefore it is an organized approach to the problem of managing risks faced by individuals.

The Risk Management process comprises of a six-step process concerning pure risks involving identification, measurement, evaluation and treatment of property, liability and other losses exposure to any individual.

1. Setting Risk Management Objectives
2. Gather Information for Risk Identification and Evaluation
3. Analyze Information to Identify and Evaluate Risk
4. Develop Risk Management Plan
5. Implement Risk Management Plan
6. Review, Monitor and Revise Risk Management Plan

Want to know more about Risk Management process?
What is Personal ,Property & Liability Risks?

For more information ,please contact Tony at +603-21469226

MAA MDRT Convention

This year MAA MDRT convention will be at :
Date: 3-5 July 2009 (Friday- Sunday)
Venue: City Bayview Hotel, Melaka
Mr Wong and I will be attending the MDRT convention 2009. This convention is by invitation only.Ever wonder how MDRT came about? The year was in 1927 where 32 successful individuals met for the first time and focused their meeting on improving technical knowledge and enhancing their sales abilities as well as maintaining ethical standards in an often misunderstood industry. The name, Million Dollar Round Table was then created. And this meeting evolved into the organization that exists till today.
Sharing similar sentiment in what had been proven over 80 years ago, MDRT convention aims to dedicate itself to encouraging ethical values, sharing of ideas and concepts where clients have found to be valuable and helping to improve business practices. All these will eventually lead you to achieving your MDRT!

Bogus investment products

Dear Business partners, Please find attached herewith a news article ‘SC warns of bogus investment products’ which appeared in The Star, 8 June 2009, for your attention.

WELCOME!

With more than 50 years of experience in financial services industry, welcome Mr. Tong, Mr. Wong and Ms. Doris to be in our team to provide financial services.

Mr. Tong, with more than 20 years experience in the financial services industry, holding Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC), Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Registered Financial Planner (RFP) and Chartered Insurance Agency Manager (CIAM).

Mr Wong, was an engineer by profession. He had more than 15 years experience in the financial services industry. He is holding a Master Degree major in management accounting & planning, and currently pursuing Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Besides, he is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP).

Ms Doris, was an interior designer by profession. She had more than 15 years in the financial services industry. She is holding Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow (LUTCF) and Associate Financial Planner Malaysia (AFPM).
Doris love and enjoy traveling and have visited many countries.

Please feel free to send in your enquiry regarding Personal Financial Planning ………….
Wealth Accumulation, Wealth Creation, Wealth Preservation and Wealth Distribution.

My Financial Planner Associates

I have the honour to have lunch with Mr Wong and Ms Doris at Saisaki Restaurant . Both of them have more than 10 years experience in the financial services industry.

Insurance News: Prudential buys over agents

Insurance News: Prudential buys over agents