Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Financial Planning for a young person

Hi Mr Tan,
I am an avid follower of your blog. I like your advice, usually neutral and conservative which suit me.

I would like to ask for some advice from you about purchasing of my first life and health insurance. I recently decided to buy insurance from a friend. He didn't approach me rather it was me who approach him.


I am a 24 year old male. I am healthy I guess without much problem. I want to buy insurance from protecting my family from financial catastrophe.
I have do some reading about insurance but I think its still not enough for me to evaluate any insurance plan well.  After going through my financial, my friend/agent came back to me with 3 plans, one is term insurance, one is saving type insurance, the last is investment linked. (Details of three plans provided)

My question is, am I paying too much premium? Am I covering too much? The CPF portion seems to be taking quite a lot of money away?


REPLY
I suggest that you buy my book, Practical Guide on Financial Planning, to read about the fundamentals of financial planning. It also explains why you should not buy any whole life or investment linked policy - as the distribution cost is too high.

You can buy the book here:
www.easysearch.sg/ishop

You should buy term insurance. The best type is from Aviva (SAF) or NTUC (SAFRA insurance). You can get a comparision of the cost here.
http://www.easysearch.sg/Admin/File.aspx?id=19