Axa Sunlife

johnbhoy

Hi,
Am a bit confused here regarding 2 policies me & my wife have with AXA SUN LIFE, i took out a policy each for us aprox 6 years ago, it is a 15 year thing where at the end of it we would get a lump sum each, if anything happened tragic to any of us before then, then the other would benefit and would get the amount in full of whoevers policy who were to die.
What it started off at was, a savings of £10 a month each, then each year it would go up £2 a year extra, at the present moment we are both paying £20 a month which is the maximum we pay, it 'matures' in 2014, well i rang up at 9am this morning just to find out how much we would receive each at the time it 'matures' in 2014 and was told we would receive £2,202 aprox with BONUSES which currently are £300 each, well got frustrated a bit as i was talking to an INDIAN woman and i asked her could i speak to someone like me who is actually ENGLISH like myself, was told to hold on, she came back and said the other person was 'busy' so i stated i demanded that i speak to someone who was english otherwise i would cancel policy straight away, well in the end i was put onto another indian lady, and told her i had asked to speak to someone English, then this lady informed me it was an INDIAN CALL CENTRE and they were all Indian! Anyway she explained what was what, so call ended. Then i calculated a few figures myself and worked out i will pay them aprox £3,400 if i continue till 2014 but will only receive back £2,202 + total bonuses as i thought that was strange! So i rang back to check this was right, and some INDIAN chap confirmed this to me, i stated i was not happy that i would be paying that amount in but only receiving back a lot less, i thought i was paying into a policy that my money would grow not get less, but i was told that if either of us had died after the first week or two then they would of paid us the full £2,202, i'm not really keyed up on these things as you may be aware, i did ask how much would i receive now if i were to cancel and was told i would receive back £900 aprox, which has left me well confused as i have not yet paid that much into this policy to date, so would me & my wife get £900 each now if we were to cancel? so thought i would e-mail you to enquire, has anyone else out there experienced something similar, some advice would be helpful, cheers Johnbhoy

ReportInvestor

Hi Johnbuoy,

I think the problem is with Axa Sun Life, not the Indians.

How did you come to buy this very poor product? I assume it is Bonus CashBuilder Plus?

Press advert? Direct mail? Carol Smillie advertising? Building society ad? You can't have got it from an adviser.

Unfortunately I think you invested a a bad time, into a fund that is not that strong and are paying at least 3.1% pa charges. Given the nature of their with profit fund that is likely to be half any potential growth gone in charges :mad:.

See this link for more details on the charging

And if you cash in they take a further wadge of your money.

johnbhoy wrote:

i did ask how much would i receive now if i were to cancel and was told i would receive back £900 aprox, which has left me well confused as i have not yet paid that much into this policy to date

johnbhoy wrote:

i took out a policy each for us aprox 6 years ago

If the policy has run for 6 years you have paid in £1,080.
If the policy has run for 5 years you have paid in £840.
Did you also receive a cash payout in the early stages, BTW? That should also be factored into any assessment of your current rate of return.

If you continue with the plan, you would hope to earn future bonuses as well.

What was the bonus rate on your last policy statement?

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings .

sylblake

I have same policy with Axa Sunlife, currently paying £20 per month with six years to go before policy matures.

Should I cash it in now????

ReportInvestor

Bad luck .

We could make a provisional assessment based on:

Current surrender value;
Guaranteed sum assured
Bonuses added to the policy
How many months to go from the date of last statement
Last bonus amount / rate
What Sun Life thinks your policy could return if the underlying fund grew at 6% pa.
The current asset mix of your with profits fund (equities, property, fixed interest, cash)

dunstonh

These Carol Smilie plans are awful and show little sign of recovery. The PPFM for AXA SL shows that the bonus rate cannot go up or down by any more than 1% p.a. With it being rock bottom now, it would take many years to get on par with a cash ISA let alone an average equity ISA fund of the same risk. The PPFM also states that AXA will take 10% of the returns on the fund leaving 90% available for policyholders. That is before product charges and with profit fund operating charges.

ReportInvestor

What a depressing thread.

Nevertheless a decision will depend on how much cash they are willing to dole out now on early closure, dh.

I would appreciate getting a handle on how bad these plans actually are, courtesy of feedback / info from the posters affected.

I wonder if Carol even knows what she involved people in?

sylblake

I will get on to them this afternoon and get a quote for cashing the policy in.

dunstonh

Some of the penalties they impose can make it more sensible to make the plan paid up or alternatively require a medium risk investment in an equity ISA, for example, to make it worthwhile changing it.

ashley0611

I too am interested in this thread - it appears I am also another one whos been sucked in unfortunately. I have TWO of these running one started in March 1997 and one in June 2000 - thus due to mature in March 2012 and June 2015 respectively. Any advice on likely amounts I would receive now would be gratefully appreciated.

If I thought I would get a reasonable sum I would invest it into my sons savings account (it was for when he gets older I started them) and pay the £40 monthly in there instead.

Many thanks

dunstonh

If you dig out the illustrations they provided to you at the start, you should see projections at 4, 6 & 8% until maturity. If you look at the 4% and you should be around that, although I would budget for a tad lower.

The FSA fined AXA £500k a few years back over the advertising of these and some misleading figures being used (IIRC). Since then, they dont appear to have marketed them as much.

Here are some old threads here on the subject.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=20565&highlight=cashbuilder
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=74192&highlight=cashbuilder
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=72189

ReportInvestor

OK, ashley. But each policy is different.

The amounts will vary according to timescale, market performance, manager performance and the alterations in the asset mix of the Axa Sun Life with profits fund.

It would help if you could find out the current surrender value for each policy, the guaranteed sum assured and any bonuses accrued to date.

I assume you started with £20 pm.

P.S. Just seen dh's useful links in the post above. The first one is good guidance.