Selling profitable products

Mr. Tan,

Was the NTUC Income Limited Premium Whole Life introduced when you were still CEO of Income? If yes, can you give a comment why you allow such a bad product to be launched when you were in office?

Is it because while in office, you have to ensure good revenue for the company and hence has to sell PROFITABLE product? If so, how can the public be very sure that your new "campaign" against your own company is not due to some hidden agenda? (Not particularly to this product)

When you were in office, why did you allow your company to sell endowments, whole life to the public and have the agent earn a big commission? You should have eliminated all participating products and fire all your agents. Can you explain?

I like to bring to your reminder that your insurance agents were responsible in bringing Income to this level of success. Without them,you cannot never have achieved what you had achieved. Do not forget that your success was due to the hardwork of many AGENTS for without sales, you will have no salary when you were CEO.

For your information, I was not and I am not a NTUC Income agent.

REPLY

I have covered this point on a few occasions in the past.

During my time, the Income agents sell products at a modest level of commission and were able to bring products at lower cost to the customers. This was an efficient means of marketing at that time.

The endowment and whole life policies sold in the past gave much better value to the policyholders compared to similar products in the market.

During my time, I was not concerned about selling PROFITABLE products, because most of the profits go back to the policyholders. I was only concerned about offering products that serve the needs of the policyholders and are fairly priced.

In today's environment, there are more efficient ways for customers to take care of their financial future. I recommend that they buy Term insurance and invest the difference.

Agents can continue to make a living by acting honestly, giving good advice, in the interest of the consumer. Do not exploit the ignorance of the consumer.