Great Eastern Maxgrowth Enhanced Endowment - More infos

More infos on this Great Eastern Maxgrowth Enhanced endowment.

I bought Great Eastern Maxgrowth from OCBC 10 years ago. I placed $10k for 5 years and upon 10 years was told that I will receive a 2%+ on my $50K.

However, I received a miserable 1% $55156.37 (after 10 years) instead of the $61945 with terminal bonus as stated in the bonus statement on 31 Dec 2022. The terminal bonus is cancelled upon maturity due to economy and fund’s performance.

The 2022 bonus statement shows:

Your Illustrated Maturity Value is 61,945 (before adjustment) 55,156 (after adjustment) on 21/11/2023.

I have written to Great Eastern Customer service and they say that it is due to the economy and the fund’s performance. They can only offer me an exclusive guaranteed 4.5% for 1 year endowment.

I have requested for their 10 years performance which is at 37,22% for a 10 year period, avg of 3.722% per year. Their fund’s performance is as shown below:

Year Net Unvestment Return (%)
2013 2.09%
2014 7.44%
2015 2%
2016 4.46%
2017 10.14%
2018 -3.02%
2019 12.66%
2020 8.85%
2021 2.3%
2022 -9.7%
Total 37.22% (for 10 years)
Avg 3.722%

They can surely afford to pay the terminal bonus and yet GE cancelled the terminal bonus. The GE CS says they did not cancel but reduced the terminal bonus, I don't understand that, I got ZERO for the terminal bonus. They are taking the year 2021 2% and 2022 -9.7% to consider the cancellation of terminal bonus.

In comparison, I have an Etiqa endowment (yah stupid of me to buy it then) 2pay8, which is pay for 2 years and get payout on 8th year. The terminal bonus for Etiqa is reduced from $14722.87 to $11470.40 which is better than cancelling the whole terminal bonus as in GE Maxgrowth.

I have requested for the actuary’s report that recommended to reduce or cancel the terminal bonus however they say it is internal document which they cannot disclose.

I have registered with FIDRec (free independent complaint center) and will lodge a complaint with them on Maxgrowth. For FIDRec, you need to communicate with GE and if not satisfied with the reply then you can lodge a complaint with FIDRec only after 4 weeks.

What I learnt from all this endowment saga is never trust what they tell you especially with NON- guaranteed returns. I hope this cancelling of terminal bonus is NOT a common practice in the Endowment circle especially when it takes 10, 20 or 30 years to realise it.

Discussion (18)

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Warrior

13 Apr 2026

Thanks for sharing your experiences here; very helpful to know this affected many of us.

For those whose policies are maturing in 2026 or later: has your most recent bonus statement shown any upward revision to the projected maturity value, compared to the reduced figure that appeared after the 2022 adjustment?

The reason I ask is that the fund has posted positive returns in both 2023 (+6.3%) and 2024 (+4.3%) according to GE's own participating fund updates. I'm curious whether those later-maturing policies are starting to see the terminal bonus rate recover, or whether the reduced rate has simply been locked in regardless of subsequent fund performance.

No need to share exact dollar amounts, just whether your projected maturity value in the latest statement is higher, the same, or still at the post-2022 reduced level would be really useful to know. Thanks.

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