Review & Comparison: Aviva MySecureSaver II – 2.28% pa Guaranteed For 3 Years (Limited Tranche)

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You’re not seeing double or having déjà vu – just a couple of hours after I posted my review of SingLife’s Endowment Series Four, I received news that Aviva was launching a very similar product this coming Tuesday on 11th Feb. I would have combined them into a single review, but I guess it’s also worth examining their differences in greater detail.

Details and Features

It shares many similarities covered under my review of SingLife’s Endowment Series Four, so let’s talk about the differences:

Differences from SingLife

Aside from the slightly better 2.28% pa rate, the minimum is significantly higher than SingLife’s $5,000 requirement, and so is the maximum amount of $1 million if you have more than $500,000 just lying around stuck in the seams of your sofa.

A major difference is that you can use your Supplementary Retirement Scheme account funds for this, if you have one, so that might sway you towards Aviva’s offering for tax planning purposes.

What you lose for that extra 0.03% pa is the free withdrawal option that SingLife has for its product. Personally, I think the withdrawal option is pretty useful, but the tenure of 3 years is already relatively short. I suppose it’s anyone’s guess if one might run into some sort of medical or financial catastrophe a while into the policy and need some money to tide over.

Comparison

Which you go for also depends on the quantum of your single premium. Let’s do some comparisons:

	SingLife	Aviva	Difference
	2.25% pa	2.28% pa	0.03% pa
$10,000	$10,690	N/A	N/A
$20,000	$21,380	$21,400	$20
$40,000	$42,760	$42,800	$40

Long story short: Aviva’s offering is $10 better for each $10,000 placed.

I might not want to give up the free withdrawal option if I’m placing $20,000, since the difference is only $20 over three years for a little bit of assurance that I can tap on some of my funds if I get retrenched or become terminally ill in the near future.

But I don’t think people would go for SingLife’s product when the difference starts getting larger with increasing amounts. After all, money placed in such products are usually in excess of emergency savings one should have tucked away for rainy days.

SingLife’s offering is the default choice for amounts under $20,000, and people placing such amounts wouldn’t feel too bad since the difference is not huge.

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Conclusion

The good:

• Decent interest rate of 2.28% pa guaranteed for the risk-averse
• Interest rate is guaranteed for 3 years, avoiding reinvestment hassle
• Death benefit, Policy Owners’ Protection Scheme
• Use of SRS funds

The bad:

• 3 years needed to get full returns
• Not for risk-seeking people
• Limited tranche

The ugly:

• Having to terminate before 3 years is up
• Being retrenched a little while after buying this policy and realising you should have bought SingLife’s product instead

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
8 Stars of Sethisfaction

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