Can insurance agents do a direct comparison of certsjn plans across insurance companies in singapore, in terms of premiums and benefits? It would be good if there are detailed articles on this.?

Kyith from Investmentmoats has extracted from DIYInsurance (now MoneyOwl), which was last updated. However, DIY has changed to MoneyOwl, and the article is no longer available.

http://investmentmoats.com/budgeting/insurance/...

1) For comparison of plans in terms of premiums and benefits, no insurer would want this (especially the bigger companies like AIA, GE, Prudential), because they might lose business.

2) Also, as the age premium band, its also difficult to compare across ages. Also, CompareFirst only states the death benefit, but excluded a lot of the features of each plan. Hence, it is difficult to find an apple to apple comparison (though it is still possible, needs a lot of time).

3) Insurers also update their products to version 2, upgraded plans etc, so there is no BEST insurance. There is only BEST at the point of advice. And articles need to be periodically updated... its not easy for anyone to maintain unless they are IFAs.

Only IFA can compare products that they distributed. Most agents are tied (eg. those from AIA, Pru, GE etc only distributed products from whichever company they are tied to).

Instead you can make use of http://www.comparefirst.sg to make comparison. I would especially encourage to take a look at the direct insurance product. These are standardised product (by regulation) thus u will be able just compare the premium. The DPI products are distribution cost free and thus will be much cheaper as compared to buying through agent channel.

There are few other products (non DPI) available for comparison as well (eg, single premium, endowments).

If you require further advice, u can contact me on my facebook.