Which savings/endowment plans is the best right now? I was told on PruWealth but are there any better ones out there?

Hi anon,

You'll need to understand what your needs are, before deciding if a saving or endowment plan is the right instrument in the first place.

If you were looking for

• A risk free guaranteed return after a number of years

• Potential upside capital appreciation without exposure to your down side

• A disciplined way to set aside money for your future use

Then an endowment plan may the investment vehicle for you to consider.

Naturally there are many types of endowment plans. In this instance, PruWealth is a perpetual endowment, meaning that you'll set aside money for a number of years, and then the plan will continue to grow your monies as long as the life assured lives. At any point during the policy, you can choose to withdraw your monies (all or part of it). Contrast this with a fixed-term endowment whereby the returns are returned to you at the end of the fixed-term and the plan ceases there after.

Now, if this type of structure is what you are looking for, then you'll want to compare a number of features. For example

• Guaranteed returns after 15, 20, 25 years, etc. The guaranteed return is an extremely important factor to note as the insurer has to deliver this regardless of market condition. This gives you an idea of the worst case scenario.

• Potential non-guaranteed return. Again, the higher the better. Consider this the best case scenario

• Riders that may prevent ensure the purpose of the plan is maintained. For example, a sole breadwinner parent buying a plan for children's education (policy owner: parent, life assured: child). With a payor benefit waiver rider, should the parent pass on during the premium paying duration, the plan will still carry on, ensuring that its intention of providing for the child's education fund is fulfilled even though there is no one earning an income to pay for the plan any more

• Any other special benefits; for example, some plans may have a lump sum payout upon certain key events being reached (e.g. entry to university, marriage, etc), and such payouts will not impact the surrender value of the plan

As you can see, there are quite a number of factors to consider, so you will want to sit down with an independent financial advisor for an in depth discussion. There are many plans similar to PruWealth, such as Manulife's ReadyBuilder, or AIA's Swart Wealth Builder, or Aviva's MyLifeSavings plan. Take some time to understand your options.

There are a lot of vehicles with decent interest rates, but you may have to meet certain requirements. It's just depends what requirements you can easily meet. Personally not a fan of endowment plans.

There is SCB Jumpstart which gives 2% for first 20K as long as you are below 26. There is Singlife which gives 2.5% for first 10K. Both are very flexible vehicles. CIMB fastsaver gives you decent interest rates without meeting much requirements too.