Common Myths about Investment-Linked Insurance Policies Debunked

Investment-linked insurance plans (ILPs) are policies that have life insurance coverage and investment components. While some see ILPs as a financial product that offers the ‘best of both worlds’ benefits to policyholders, others are a little warier, believing that they’d end up better off if they were to keep their wealth accumulation goals distinct from insurance plans.

Unfortunately for the latter, their scepticism could be holding them back from leveraging one of the most powerful financial tools available in the market. To prevent you from making that mistake, let’s take a look at four widespread misconceptions about ILPs – and why they’re wrong.

Myth #1: You’ll Be Locked into an ILP Sub-Fund

With ILPs, your premiums are used to pay for units in one or more sub-funds of your choice, depending on your risk appetite. You can think of sub-funds as unit trusts that can help generate returns for you (i.e., potentially grow your wealth faster than regular deposits or savings accounts). However, one of the most common misconceptions regarding ILPs is that you’d be locked into your pick of sub-funds – unable to make changes to your portfolio even if a specific sub-fund fails to meet your investment objectives or when your financial goals change.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. All ILPs allow you to make changes to your portfolio of sub-funds in line with your financial goals. Of course, certain ILPs will impose a ‘switching charge’ or a limited number of switching for free. Occasionally, though, you can find gems like Tiq Invest by Etiqa Insurance, which entitles you to an unlimited packaged funds switch at no additional charge.

Myth #2: The Older You Get, the More You’ll Pay for ILP Premiums

Remember the insurance portion of your ILP? Most ILPs will take a cut from your premiums – either through the ‘front-end loading’ or ‘back-end’ loading – to cover the insurance aspect of your policy, including the plan itself and the insurer’s expenses. Since health insurance premium increases with age, this results in another ILP-related misconception: that you’d have to pay increasing amounts of premium over the years.

In reality, though, you don’t. As you get older, the amount of premium you pay doesn’t increase; only that more of your premium will have to go towards maintaining your coverage (i.e., the percentage of your premium that goes toward purchasing sub-fund units will decrease).

If this aspect of ILPs puts you off, don’t worry. Certain ILPs (e.g., Tiq Invest) allow you to invest 100% of your premiums without any insurance charges at all – while still offering you coverage against death and terminal illness.

Myth #3: Measuring the Performance of Your ILP Investment Won’t Be Easy

Contrary to popular beliefs, measuring the performance of your ILP investment isn’t a challenge at all. For instance, with Tiq Invest, you’ll receive fund reports of each of your ILP sub-fund on both a semi-annual and annual basis. These documents make it easy for you to understand the performance of your sub-fund relative to other funds with the same or similar benchmarks – so you can judge if it truly matches its stated investment objective. Of course, if you have any further questions, you could always defer to your fund manager.

Myth #4: ILP Is a Risky Investment Move

One of the strongest cases against ILPs is that they usually do not have any guaranteed cash values. Instead, the value of your policy depends on how your portfolio of sub-fund performs. In other words: the cash value of your ILP can take a hit (or even go to 0) if your sub-fund perform poorly. And there goes your investment and insurance coverage. While this certainly holds for certain ILPs out there, you also have your pick of ‘risk-free’ options.

With Tiq Invest, for example, you never have to worry about an economic downturn wiping out the entirety of your insurance coverage because your loved ones are still entitled to a lump sum payment at the higher of 1) 105% of net premiums paid or 2) account value. So if you’re ready to take on an ILP that truly offers the ‘best of both worlds’ – without worrying about the usual associated cons – then definitely check out Tiq Invest.

Need more coverage on top of what your ILP offers? Check out the best whole life insurance and term life insurance plans in the market today!

Read More:

• Common Misconceptions about Investment-Linked Insurance Policies
• VC Compares: Endowment Plans vs ILPs — Which Should You Get?
• How Endowment Insurance Plans Work — T&Cs You Need To Know
• Endowment Insurance vs. Fixed Deposits: Which Is Better for You?
• 5 Important Things You Need to Know Before Buying Life Insurance

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