Saturday, November 19, 2005

NTUC Income has the best call center in Singapore

NTUC Income has the best call center in Singapore.

On 18 Novemeber, we received the award of the best call center in Singapore. We won against the call centers operated by the telephone companies, banks and other large organisations.

Our subsidary, Call Center One (which offers outsourced call center service to other business organisations) also received the top award in its category.

Why?

If you call our hotline 6788 6616 at any time (24 hours X 7 days), you are answered promptly by a human voice. You do not have to wait or interact with a voice recording machine.

You get personal attention immediately.

And there are many other reasons!

Motor premium does not depend on value of car

ISSUE:

A motor policyholder asked why his renewal premium was not reduced according to the depreciation in value of his car. He cited that other insurance companies also practice the same thing.

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MY REPLY:

You have taken the right approach, which is to find out the most competitive premium rates from a few insurers.

Each insurer will have to decide on what is its appropriate premium rate, taking the relevant factors into account. I hope that you find our premium rate to be competitive and our service to be satisfactory, and will renew with us.

We are not able to reduce the premium rate based on your argument. Please allow us to practice what is practical for us.

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POLICYHOLDER'S REPLY:

Dear Mr Tan,

Probably you're the only CEO of a prominent organisation who always pay attention to small issues. And easily accessible by common people like me. I appreciate that.

From your email, I have a perception that once a premium reach its lower threshold, then other factors outside the insured parameters (such as; insurer's operational and indemnity cost) will play a significant role.

Frankly speaking, I still found that NTUC Income i! s still the most competitive among those big players in motor insuranc e.

I did have good experience with Income in the past, no doubt about it.

Monday, November 14, 2005

NTUC Income gives a better return than other insurers

A policyholder was unhappy that his return was lower than the illustration made at the time that the policy was sold 15 years ago.

My manager gave her explanation (reply 1). I followed up with a further explanation (reply 2).

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REPLY 1 (FROM MANAGER)

You have bought our endowment policy in 1990. The illustrated maturity figure was based on the bonus rates at that time, and on the high return from our investments.

However, for years 1997, 2001 and 2002, we were forced to cut our bonus due to difficult market conditions. For 2003 and 2004, we have done better and have reflected this by restoring partially the bonus cuts in the earlier years. The bonus rates for Year 2004 is about 83% higher than for 2002.

Your policy matured this year. The average yield works out to be 5.91% per annum. This is considered very good. If you have set aside the same yearly amount with a bank over the same period, you would have received much lesser.

Our terminal bonus of 25% is a generous amount. Even in our bad years, we have dipped into our reserves to maintain this. We do so because we do not want policyholders with matured policies to forfeit this due to a few years of poor results.

We have given you a good and fair return on your insurance policy. You cannot compare this with equities. They are totally different classes of products.

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REPLY 2 (FROM CEO)

I confirm that you have obtained a fairly attractive return. If you have insured with another insurance company, your return would have been much lower.

My manager will send you a letter written by another policyholder, printed in the Straits Times, where she complained about the poor return from another insurance company. She said that the return from NTUC Income was much better.

I hope that you will, after reading this letter, send us your appreciation for the good return that we have given to you, during the past years, when the investment climate has been quite difficult.

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