This photo is hot off the lens of an AFP photographer. Shown here are residents cleaning up rubble from a badly damaged house in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture after a recent earthquake.
Couldn’t resist sharing it with you. Everybody has got to ask themselves: how prepared am I for an emergency? Are you protected from death, fire, illness? Here is another kind of disaster waiting to happen:
Teresita Galanto, 71, smokes a one-meter-long rolled tobacco cigar during a tobacco rolling contest in Candon, Ilocos Sur. Photo again courtesy of AFP. Might look like fun, but I bet the lady’s lungs are not jumping with joy. Do I hear somebody asking if this woman is insured?
September 10th, 2007 at 2:12 am
[...] shocking site now polish up this theory http://www.inquirerbloggers.net/moneysmarts/2007/03/27/are-you-prepared-for-disaster/ and give comments [...]
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 am
Hi Angie, actually I’ve nothing against paying commissions if it’s reasonable and does you a great service. 50% commish for life insurance policy is well-earned, knowing the difficulty of selling insurance and the relief it brings at the hour of need. 5% for real estate is okay especially with millions involved.
But for soliciting savings perhaps the 3% cited by Salve (see “Mutual Fund for Dummies” thread) is more than enough. The 50% for pension plans translates to 10% of total payable which, given the alternatives, is way too much for soliciting savings. Especially among the expanding ranks of OFWs, some of which are aware of zero-fee mutual funds offered in the US!
Still best for you to be aware of the value-added your products give and offer what is mutually beneficial for you and your client. Pension plans may have to give way to substitutes like funds and 5-year tax-free bank deposits. But insurance coverage is still a unique service for which you deserve every cent in commissions!
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:55 am
from the perspective of a financial product manufacturer/provider:
2 financial products calling for payments of php 100/year for five years, product A pays 30% comm while product B pays 50% comm, product A will have Php 70 left for investment in the first year while product B will only have Php 50, assuming the same yield projection of 8%, product B would have a lower final value because of lower initial base.
for these 2 products, product A would definitely be better for clients but may be less attractive to agents while product B would be less beneficial to clients but more financially rewarding for agents.
one reality in the distribution of financial products in the country is that the success of a product is still largely agent driven, this may be due to lack of financial literacy of the market or it’s lack of inclination to spend time to understand the financial impact of their decisions.
education/pension products for a time are popular and maybe still are because it does not require the “buyer” to think too much, the benefits are clearly defined and the only decision point would be how much can they afford
until such time that the market in general grows in terms of financial literacy, the distribution of financial products would remain to be agent driven
thanks
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:30 am
Hi Hachiko. This is not for the sake of argument but rather for the sake of varying kinds of Filipino investors esp. the type who believe that pre-need plans are the investment vehicles suitable for their risk profile because they cannot yet appreciate the volatility of pooled investment instruments & the possiblity that they will lose their investments. There are still those who can only sleep with their money placed in pension plans because they offer guaranteed returns. Many plans do have an average yield better than bank deposit instruments & higher than our average inflation rate. I believe it is not right to say that a pension plan is inferior because “too much goes to the agent…so yields are lousy.” In my 13 yrs experience in the pre-need & insurance sales career, I do not see a correlation nor an inverse relationship between yield & commission. There were policies/plans with not-so-good returns & not-so-good commission either. And there were also those with good returns & good commission as well…but not 50%!
April 1st, 2007 at 11:32 am
Ma’am Salve :
How do I evaluate an insurance company’s financial position? And where do I access that information?
Thanks!