Life Insurance Aia

[sanchobkk]

Could somebody help me out with this matter ?

I took this year (january) an insurance life coupled along with health insurance with AIA,

my question will be on the life one, cause I would expect the health one to be crap.

So, let me know if the life is too .

Well, I struggle to understand the terms (in english) of this insurance, as I did it last year in a hurry, without really caring.

Here are the document, what would happen if, for instance, I decide to stop paying the premium, let's say, at the 9th year, and want my money back (at least a part of it) ?

Any help much appreciated

PS, sorry for my poor english

[JoePai]

Why not talk to the agent you bought if from and ask them to explain - or better still go to AIA direct and get the correct answers as on the face of it it looks very poor value for money, sorry.

[scorecard]

Why not talk to the agent you bought if from and ask them to explain - or better still go to AIA direct and get the correct answers as on the face of it it looks very poor value for money, sorry.

I cannot make any comment about AIA.

But my family has had poor experiences with other assurance companies here in Thailand including both life assurance and health insurance, as follows:

- The realization that the agent (a young very forceful Thai lady) had no knowledge whatever of the details of the policies and was inventing answers that 'sounded good'.

- The agent claimed that there was a 'master policy' held at the assurance company head office which was different than the policy documents held by policy holders and this is normal operation procedure for all assurance companies, and policy holders were not allowed to see the .

'master policy' document.

- She did not have a supervisor, and that she reported to nobody within the assurance company, therefore there was nobody who could be contacted at the head office for discussions about the policies.

- It is forbidden for policy holders to call the head office and ask questions. If they do then their benefits will be reduced by 5%.

- She was inventing 'answers' to protect her commission payments. This was in regard to a part of the policy clauses whereby if the holder 'cashed-in' the policy within a certain period then the agent had to return the commission payments she had received.

- Initially the agent said, forcefully, that it was the law of Thailand that she had to physically hold all the policy documents on behalf of the actual policy holders. After some strong and demanding challenges by my Thai son (the policies were actually started by his wife) and myself the policy documents were handed over.

- Initially the agent claimed that the policies were not available in English langauge and that is was against Thai law for the poicies to be written in English language. (In fact the policies were from a joint venture between a high profile US based assurance company and a high profile Thai bank.)

- One of the policies was for health insurance, taken by my sons wife for her mother. The agent convinced my daughter-inlaw to take out a policy which was probably 4 times larger then what was sensible and affordable by my daughter-in-law. When my son discovered this he challenged the agent and was initially rudely told that only the actual policy holderss were allowed to discuss things with her, by law, and therefore she could not answer his questions.

And more...

My lesson, beware of Thai assurance agents (and of course this can happen in many countries, not just Thailand).

Get some answers direct from the head office of the company. If phone calls don't work, then go the head office well dressed and politely tell the staff that your not leaving until you speak to someone senior and also insist and demand (politely of course) on being given the name of somebody senior in the US head office (or wherever it might be).

That's what we eventually did. And we did eventually get some refund.

[chiangmaibruce]

I don't know about the specifics of this policy but agree with the advice of others to talk to someone in AIA as soon as possible. If it is poor value and you are going to take a hit, then better to do it sooner rather than later (and take a bigger hit).

I am not keen on these savings/investment plans wrapped up in life (and other) insurance. Better to keep it separate and make your own arrangements with savings/investment. This type of policy was once common in Australia (decades ago) but is now rare (although still popular within the Asian/Australian community). I don't even know if you can get a straight life-insurance policy only in Thailand (but I imagine you can). I spoke to AIA here once and was only offered the combined life/savings style of policy, which I declined.

I worked for a time with AIA in Australia and I can assure readers that the situation regarding misconduct by agents is certainly NOT the norm there now. In fact insurance agents there are now regulated to the point of suffocation, and subject to heavy penalties for providing bad advice or doing anything dodgy.

[pakorn8000]

People tend to look and hate a life assurance agent because misconducts from those agents who are lack of knowledge and then could not provide honest and professional consultancy to clients.

And you need to understand that life assurance is about saving your 'saving portion' not your 'investment portion' of what you have. You use this to ensure that your love ones will be all right if you ran out of time in your life. It is simply a risk transfer + providing 'good return' that better than many means, with 'bond-like' security because there is no other way in the world that you could produce a large amount of money for your family with small amount within a short period of time.

For Khun sanchobkk, you need to look at the table number 2, the Cash Value colum state the number of cash you get if you terminate this policy in certain year, or you may loan this amount from it with interest. The Reduced Paid-up means you stop paying in that year, then the coverage amount reduced as well as CV, but the coverage period stays the same. The Extended Time means your coverage amount stays the same, but the coverage length is shorten.

It is always best to consult with a professional/ethical agent. There are just to many others who have ruined the industry. But like chiangmaibruce mentioned, it should be better here as well.