Customer feedback on plan V

Hi,

I wish to share my experience on plan V. I suffered a severe penalty for severing the plan after 24 months. I lost over $30,000 from an investment of close to $50000!

I gave up on the plan principally because of the rigidity i.e. you must pay continuously for over 20 years otherwise you will lose the bonus or incur hefty penalty. For a plan that costs over $2000 per month, this is extremely expensive.

I am also frustrated over the lack of transparency, the financial product is very complex with many inherent fees and charges. I am certainly not aware of the generous commissions that my financial adviser was getting at the time this plan was introduced to me, certainly no disclosure of any sort. The product was sold to me as an exclusive financial investment instrument with extremely good returns (including the so-called bonus). The issue of the hefty fines and penalties was not highlighted, even if they may be in the fine print somewhere.

At the end of the day, it is my fault for not carefully scrutinising these policies and to be taken in by financial advisers that I once trusted. But I fully agree that people should be educated and warned about financial instruments that have many conditions and contractual rules that bind and severely disadvantage a client.

When I cancelled my policy, I was told that the only time I can get the money before the matuity date, without any penalty was when I die. Even critical illness was not accepted! Unfortunately, these penalties, commissions and heft charges, are something that is difficult to glean because they are hidden, obscured by fine print and perhaps, simply not fully understood or appreciated by non financial people like me! I am tertiary educated person and I simply don't have the time and resources to go through these complicated rules!

I hope more people should be aware of this and to be very careful of expensive and complex financial investment plans. Don't be fooled by the sweet promises of unscrupulous advisers!