Do not terminate your policies

An Income agent said that several of his policyholders have terminated their policies as they have lost trust in Income. I wish to advise policyholders not to terminate your policies for this reason, as you will be incurring a large loss due to the high upfront charge.

The chairman of Income have given three assurances regarding the restructure of the bonus. His speech is posted in Income's website:
http://www.income.com.sg/aboutus/2008Bonus/chairman.asp

Para 17 and 18 of his speech are reproduced below:

17. Some policyholders have raised specific concerns on the special bonus in blogs. Allow me to address them.

> While special bonuses are not guaranteed, they are designed to ensure that the reduction in annual bonus is compensated. As I have indicated earlier, the new bonus structure is aimed at improving, the total payout to policyholders.

> Should the special bonus in future reduce due to adverse financial conditions, we are committed to restoring it when conditions improve.

> I have stated that this Board will look after the policyholders’ interests. Towards this end, the Board will ensure that the bonus allocated to policyholders result in payouts is fair and consistent with the experience of the Life Fund.

18. I hope I have managed to give you a better understanding and appreciation of the position regarding the bonus restructuring. We will not hurt policyholders and shareholders. And we shall also not allow NTUC Income to be hurt.

I have written to Income that the payout on a 5 year Growth policy that is reaching maturity this year is rather low and does not meet the standard of "fair and consistent with the experience of the Life Fund". This probably applies to many other Growth policies that is maturing in the near future.

Let us give some time to Income to sort out this problem.

I will also be writing to Income to suggest that higher bonuses be allocated to existing policies (even if they are in non-guaranteed form) to reflect the good experience of the Life Fund in the recent years. I hope that the final outcome will give a better return for Income policyholders.