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Friday, December 28, 2012

Danger of stopping premium payments

Ms Koh (not her real name) bought three life insurance policies in 2001. The agent told her that she can stop paying premium after 10 years and the policy will still carry on. After 10 years, she stopped paying the premiums.

When she enquired about the status of the policies two years later, she was shocked to learn that the premiums were actually being advanced as a loan charged to the policy and is accumulating interest at a high rate. The customer service staff told her that the policies will reach zero value after a few years, due to the mounting loans.

She was shocked that her premiums of more than two hundred thousand dollars could become zero. She cancelled all of her policies.

Ms. Koh might have been mis-informed by the customer service staff, but the service quality was bad, slow and unreliable.

When the agent sell the concept of stopping premium payment after the policy has acquired an adequate cash value, the agent did not explain clearly how it worked or that the "critical year" depends on many factors. They just wanted to close the sale with some vague promise, and let the customer and the office staff face the problem many years later.

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