Let’s just say that it’s good to know your financial position. It’s important to know now about whether you will have sufficient funds at retirement to lead the kind of lifestyle you dream of. It’s important to know that in case of unforeseen situations you are well covered and have the finances to pull you through. It is important that your family will be taken care of and not left with burdens of your debts.
So what do you do given that you know what’s best for you and your family in the future? You save, invest, buy protection plans, etc. These are good measures to take if you have not already thought about it. The only thing is you may not know how much to save, invest or protect. And that’s where your supposedly well informed and educated banker, planner or agent come in and tell you what you need to buy.
They first put you through a financial health check that ask questions that you will somehow answer “no” to. And the more “no” you have, the more you are in danger of not having a healthy financial position. I feel that the questions are tilted in such a way that you need to be paying very high premiums for a few financial planning products in order to be given a clean bill of health. It looks like you’re being milked in the word of “saving for the future”. So what would it be like if you did follow the recommendations to buy expensive financial products? Looks like you will be rich in the future but very poor right now. Does this seem right?
Here’s one example of a health check that I did recently. What do you think of questions 2, 4 and 5?
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