Thoughts about AXA Wealth Accelerate if the below conditions apply?

Hi anon, you should approach ILPs with caution. They generally invest in funds with high total expense ratios (~1.5+%). Not many would talk about this but they affect your potential returns (on top of the fees charged in regular premium ILPs).

After having read through this particular ILP, and asking my agent to generate the PI for me, I realised a few things :
1. If you ever think of not paying for any month / year, you will face a loss from the monthly fees charged.
2. When you don't pay for a month, you don't get any bonus for one year. So if you think about it, you lose out in this aspect already.
3. When you do a partial withdrawal, maybe due to sudden emergency and your emergency funds wasn't sufficient to cover, you get charged 7% to withdraw AND no bonus given. Even after MIP, no bonus given. How then do you decide when to withdraw or even when to stop paying?
4. You pay for the fees of the bonus(es) given to you as these fees are charged based on total account value so more value = more fees.
5. Overall, even if I managed to pay all the way, the insurance company "eats" ~30% (some even more) of total expected returns.
6. Loyalty bonus is only given after your selected MIP and you continue paying for one of the fees (can't rmb which, sorry). If you decide to withdraw, then no bonus.

I have also looked at pulsar but that has higher fees but allows you to withdraw with no charge except maybe penalize you in reducing bonus received on 10th policy year.

Actually, as much as we can't predict the market, we are also unable to predict our future even if we are in a stable-paying job. This ILP then becomes our liability as we can't choose to stop paying for whatever reason may come our way and our income comes from our job. Would you be able to consider a career switch in the future? If you really decide to stop paying, you probably might still earn something but not as much as if you had continued paying so would you be comfortable with the amount received at the end?

Rather than worrying about all these, perhaps it may be better to start with a robo or just buying one / two global ETF with much lower fees or even just topping up your cpf, which would also lock your money in but guarantees the 4% return and hey, tax relief!

I agree with Woo.

AXA Wealth Accelerate is an ILP and you need to understand its mechanics before you purchase it. Mechanics being:

1. Fees. One-off, periodic? Read the policy document to see what they can do to the fees.

2. Penalties. What happens if you stop paying with or without "valid" reason?

3. Claims. What happens when you need to claim? What (hidden) transactions and fees are involved? What happens if you claim when the investments are doing poorly? Etc.

There could be more to think of. I don't have an ILP but I have seen many articles encouraging to keep insurance and investments separate.

I recommend getting the quotations for term insurance and doing the necessary comparisons.