Savings policy is a savings product from the financial world. It is completely liquid, and it is mostly managed by insurance companies; it is similar to executive pension insurance in terms of how the funds are managed. It has high managerial flexibility; there is no limit to one-time deposits; and the client can conduct ongoing deposits of a fixed sum. It has many advantages over products that are managed by the bank system; these advantages manifest in bank service charges for investment portfolio management, buying and selling service charges, taxable events, etc.
Main points
- Liquidity and withdrawal at short notice: you can use money that has been deposited into the savings policy at any moment – you can withdraw the whole sum at once or in doses as needed, and there is the option of monthly stipends (annuity) until all the money has been cashed in.
Wide investment dispersion: dispersion both in the stock market and in non-tradable assets, which helps in reducing the correlation to the stock market and to the managed funds’ volatility, as opposed to investment products that are well-known in the banks’ or investment houses’ consultation systems (e.g., mutual fund or managed portfolio).
- A variety of investment channels: the client can move between investment channels with no taxable/tax event, as opposed to mutual funds in which each change and movement between funds entails a capital gains tax. Thus, throughout the investment’s duration, the savings policy client can make changes and adjust the risk level to the stock market’s changing needs with no taxable/tax event.
- Transparency: the designated area of the managing company website includes the client’s personal information, and the client can also withdraw funds from that area of the website. In addition, the policy’s yields are published once a month, and the client can compare between all the bodies that manage policies in the market.
- Management fees: these fees derive from the invested sum, and as the sum becomes bigger the fees become smaller. The average management fees are about 0.8% a year. The savings policy has a known service charge with no additions like securities management fees and buying and selling service charges, which do exist in direct products, or like internal mutual fund management fees, which exist in mutual funds.
- Intergenerational transfer plan: the client can appoint the policy’s beneficiaries in the case of their death.
- Loans: the client can receive loans with better conditions than those of bank loans, since in the former, the money continues to circulate and work in the stock market.
- Tax deferral: as long as the funds are not withdrawn from the old policy, there is tax deferral, which increases its effective yield over time.