GP Brokers CC

Members and clients must have a lovely weekend

Retrenchment Cover

In today’s difficult financial times more and more people are looking for cover in case of retrenchment.
The question of ability to survive financially and to be able to provide for your family is a big concern.
Retrenchment cover will pay up to six(6) months’ income in the event of your retrenchment. This will help you to survive while finding new employment.
We at GP Brokers offers retrenchment cover trough 3 different companies namely Old Mutual, Liberty and Hollard life.
If you need more information or a quotation please contact us at 011 7621930 or send an email to [email protected]

Baie geluk aan NF van der Merwe en Kotie met julle groot dag, mag julle baie geluk beleef

How many of your older clients have a critical illness policy that covers them for mental health illnesses?

Fact is, mental health problems in people aged 65+ are fairly common; the UK-based National Institute for Clinical Excellence estimates that dementia affects 5% of people over the age of 65 and as much as 20% of those over the age of 80.

Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia that affects and impairs memory, thinking, decision-making and behaviour. World Life Expectancy ranks Alzheimer’s as a top 25 cause of death, claiming more than 500 000 lives around the world each year.

October is Mental Health Awareness Month and the perfect opportunity to assess your older clients’ critical illness needs.

We cover Alzheimer’s disease under our Core and Comprehensive Critical Illness benefits, with both benefits paying 25% or 100% of the benefit amount, depending on the severity of the case. Are your clients aged over 65 covered for critical illness?

(hollard)
Call us for more info

Telesales Person needed
Experienced in Life Insurance, able to generate own qualified leads. R4 000.00 basic with incentives
Nickey @ 011 [email protected]
Roodepoort Area

I would like to thank you for your support to GP Brokers and my staff this past year, and hope that we will continue our good relations in the year that lay ahead.
I hope that you and your family will have a blessed festive season, and Prosperous New Year.
If you have any problems during the festive season please do not hesitate to contact me on my cell phone number: 083 478 6776.
From my family to yours be safe this festive season.

Money Matters Volume Advice on Money Matters Nico van Gijsen:
Does Outsurance really pay back premiums? pay back premiums? pay back premiums? pay back premiums? pay back premiums?pay back premiums? Sunday 01 November 2015 04:00 Nico van Gijsen People often ask me how Outsurance manages to promise paying back all of the premiums on a life insurance policy after 15 years. Easy. It is nothing else but an obsolete policy concept dressed up as a smart new marketing idea. It’s a combination of a life and an endowment policy. You’re actually buying back those premiums. Despite what the TV ad says, Outsurance does not give anything back. I asked a colleague to request comparable quotes from Outsurance and Old Mutual (OM). She provided the same information to both and requested a quote for R2 million life cover with a level premium guaranteed for 5 years. I selected OM to be representative of the traditional insurers. I also have a contract with them. With Outsurance my colleague will pay R1 127,50 a month. With OM R363,00 a month. In other words, for the same amount of cover Outsurance is R764,50 a month more expensive than Old Mutual. Fine, but Outsurance pays back the premiums, according to the TV ad – after 15 years. In this case it amounts to (R1 127,50 x 12 x 15) R202 950. Actually, this is no “Outbonus” – it’s an optional type of endowment policy that you buy. And it will cost you an extra R531,25 a month (in our illustrative quote). The additional catch is that you get the premiums back only if you live longer than 15 years. Should you die within the 15-year period, the money is gone. Deducting the “Outbonus” policy premium from the total premium (R1 127,50 – R531,25) still means Outsurance charges R229,25 a month more than Old Mutual for the same amount of life cover. Let’s consider what we now know to be an optional “Outbonus” policy – at an additional monthly premium of R531,25 – as a stand-alone investment option. Fifteen years are long term, which enables you to invest quite aggressively if this is your investment horizon. I have looked at Allan Gray’s balanced fund (a moderate risk fund), which has averaged 18% per annum since inception. An investment of R531,25 a month over a 15-year period in this fund, at the abovementioned growth rate, will give you R488 323 – compared to R202 950 from Outsurance. And the big difference is that you will lose the Outsurance “Outbonus” if you die within 15 years, whereas the full value of the Allan Gray investment will be available to beneficiaries at any time. Investing the full difference in premium (R1 127,50 – R363,00) of R764,50 a month would yield R702 735 after 15 years. No wonder the traditional insurers abandoned these fallacies about policies a long time ago. Almost as a passing remark, a clause listed on page 4 of the quote states that the onus is on the client to provide Outsurance with evidence of not being HIV positive within 60 days of taking out the policy. Failing which, the life policy will be converted into an accident policy. What does this mean? The policy pays out only if you die as a result of an accident.
■ Nico van Gijsen, a certified financial planner

Experienced in Life Insurance, able to generate own qualified leads. R4 000.00 basic with incentives
Nickey @ 011 [email protected]

October is breast cancer awareness month

South Africans live longer
According to Statistics South Africa’s Mid-year Population Estimates Report released last month, life expectancy at birth now stands at 61 years. That’s up from just 52 years in 2005
thank you hollard

One of the significant consequences of the change from defined-benefit retirement funds to defined-contribution retirement funds was the creation of a “gap” between saving for retirement and generating an income in retirement.
Most defined-benefit funds pay a pension that is defined the day you start work. The pension is based on the number of years you belong to the fund and how much you earn at retirement.
Most defined-contribution funds pay you the money you have saved by the time you reach retirement, and you have to buy a pension with the money. Some funds do provide a pension, but not many.
The problem with defined-contribution funds is that many people know very little about annuities (pensions) and do not understand the possible consequences of how they invest their money. There is also a cost when you leave the fund and have to buy a pension.
Changes in financial markets and interest rates mean there is little certainty that, when you retire, you will have saved enough, or that your investment choices will secure a sustainable income in retirement.
As a result, many people who, before they retired, might have been reasonably confident that they could look forward to a financially secure future have suffered the dire consequences of making bad decisions at and in retirement.
People who use retirement annuities (RAs) to save for retirement also face the challenges that arise when you have to switch from saving for retirement to generating an income in retirement.
National Treasury, with its latest retirement reform proposals, hopes to improve the situation by making the switch from saving for retirement to receiving an income in retirement more seamless and secure and less expensive.
The proposed changes include the introduction of default options that will make retirement fund trustees more responsible for taking decisions on your behalf.
Your fund’s trustees will choose a default option on your behalf if you do not make a choice. You will not be forced to use a default option.
The recent Sanlam Employee Benefits Benchmark Survey of retirement funds shows that most fund members prefer to use default options when these are available.
The survey found that almost 60 percent of stand-alone, employer-sponsored retirement funds offer their members a choice of how they want to invest their savings, but 83 percent of members choose the default option selected by their fund’s trustees.
A key default being proposed is a pension selected, and possibly managed, by your retirement fund. The default pension will, in most cases, be linked to default investment options (see “Terms and conditions will apply to default annuities”, below).
Currently, if your occupational retirement fund offers you default options, it likely that these are limited to how you want to invest your savings in the build-up to retirement. Most investment defaults aim to reduce the likelihood of market volatility destroying the value of your retirement savings when you are about to retire. For example, an occupational retirement fund or an RA may enable you to choose the underlying investments from a range of unit trusts and exchange traded funds. The portfolio you select will be managed to ensure that, at retirement, you will not be exposed to excessive risk from falling investment markets.
You may also be offered a default option. Currently, the default options aimed at smoothing the “gap” between saving for retirement and drawing an income in retirement include:
* Life-stage options. The investment risk to which your savings are exposed is gradually decreased as you approach the date on which you will retire. The risk is decreased mainly by reducing your savings’ exposure to equities.
* Capital-guaranteed, smooth/stable bonus portfolios. These investment portfolios, which are offered by life assurance companies, guarantee that you will not lose a certain percentage of your capital, and the performance is smoothed over years when returns are good and bad. The objective is to reduce the volatility of your investment so that, when you retire or leave a retirement fund, the value of your capital will not have been affected by investment market shocks.
The investment decisions related to the default option are made by your trustees, or advisers or product providers chosen by your trustees.
A few RA funds that have index-tracking products as the underlying investments are structured according to your life-stage. But the vast majority of RAs that offer you a choice of unit trusts and other funds as underlying investments expect you, with or without the assistance of a financial adviser, to structure your investments in line with your life-stage. At retirement, you must decide what type of pension you want to buy.
Life assurance company Liberty recently launched its Agile product range, which enables you, long before you retire, to allocate your savings to a fund that will guarantee a certain income level in retirement. The aim is to smooth the “gap” between your retirement savings and your income in retirement.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS WILL APPLY TO DEFAULT ANNUITIES
National Treasury has proposed that the rules of all retirement funds must provide for default annuity (pension) strategies. This means that, unless you specifically choose otherwise, your retirement fund will automatically provide you with a pension.
Draft regulations, which are available for public comment, provide for a retirement fund or a life assurance company to offer a choice of default annuities.
You will have to inform your fund if you do not want the default pension. In this case, you will have to decide whether you want:
* A living annuity, where your income will depend on how you invest your savings and the returns that your investments earn;
* A with-profit annuity, where a pension is guaranteed and the increases are based on the investment returns earned by a life company; or
* A guaranteed annuity provided by a life company.
If you choose a guaranteed annuity, you will have to decide on the product provider and what type of annuity you want – for example, whether your pension will increase every year in line with inflation, and the whether a surviving partner or spouse must be paid a percentage of your pension after you die.
Your fund should be allowed to use an investment-linked living annuity or a traditional annuity to provide a default pension, according to National Treasury’s proposals.
Living annuity
National Treasury has proposed that, if your retirement fund offers a living annuity as a default pension, it must be provided by the fund, not a commercial product provider.
Treasury has proposed strict limitations for default living annuities. These include:
* The pension drawdown level. Normally, you decide what percentage, between 2.5 and 17.5 percent, of the annual value of your retirement capital you will withdraw as a pension.
The proposals set default drawdown rates, which are linked to your age, to ensure that your capital will continue to provide a pension throughout your life and that of your surviving spouse (or partner).
The proposed default drawdown rates are: –
–– If you are younger than 60, the drawdown must not be more than seven percent a year;
– From 60 to 65, a maximum of eight percent a year;
– From 66 to 70, a maximum of nine percent a year;
– From 71 to 75, a maximum of 10 percent;
– From 76 to 80, 12 percent;
– From 81 to 85, 15 percent; and
– If you are older than 85, a maximum of 17.5 percent.
If you want to receive a higher or lower pension, within the prescribed age range, you will have to inform your fund of the drawdown level initially and on every anniversary of the annuity.
* The underlying investments. Your fund will provide a default investment portfolio. If you want a portfolio that is invested more conservatively or aggressively, you will have to opt out of the default.
However, whether you use a default living annuity or buy a living annuity sold by a commercial product provider, the investments have to comply with the prudential regulations under the Pension Funds Act, which limit a retirement fund’s exposure to a particular asset class or asset. For example, the regulations state that no more than 75 percent of the investment portfolio may be in shares.
The fund’s trustees will have to monitor your pension and warn you if they believe you may be vulnerable to “substantial falls” in income.
Traditional pension
Your fund may offer you a default pension provided by the fund or a life assurance company.
A pension provided by the fund may be offered with or without a guarantee of the income level.
If your fund provides the pension:
* You must be informed that your pension could vary in line with the value of the underlying assets, the fund’s expenses, and how long you and the other pensioners live;
* The assets used to generate the pensions must be kept separate from the savings of contributing pre-retirement members; and
* The assets must be invested in terms of the prudential investment requirements, as well as the risk/return profile required to provide an income flow to the pensioners.
Your fund can negotiate with a life assurance company to provide a default guaranteed pension if:
* The pension increases are linked to an independently verifiable formula;
* No commissions are paid from your savings; and
* Your fund’s trustees are satisfied that the life company will not go bankrupt.
LINK BETWEEN PENSION AND YOUR PRE-RETIREMENT INVESTMENTS
The type of annuity (pension) you plan to use to provide an income in retirement will help to determine your investment strategy before retirement, Mark Lapedus, the head of product development at Liberty Investments, says.
He says the answer to the “big question” about which investment strategy you should adopt before retirement will depend on whether you plan to use a guaranteed annuity or an investment-linked living annuity.
Lapedus says that:
* If you intend to buy a guaranteed annuity, you should move your retirement savings entirely into more conservative investments as you approach retirement. This does not necessarily mean that all your money should be in cash; you could invest in bonds or a portfolio that will help to ensure that the investment moves in line with the cost of the annuity. The cost of the pension, namely how much you will pay for the monthly rand amount you require, will depend on interest rates at the time you invest in the annuity. The higher interest rates, the higher your pension.
* If you intend to buy a living annuity, your post-retirement investments are likely to be conservative but should not be entirely in cash or other very low-risk assets. This is because, with a living annuity, you carry the investment risk. Your life expectancy in retirement can be 20 or 30 years, so you need to have exposure to growth assets, such as equities and listed property.
Lapedus says a way of ensuring that market movements do not destroy the value of your retirement savings shortly before your retirement date is to use life assurance products that smooth returns over different market cycles and guarantee that the capital value will not decrease.
He says there are other types of guarantees, which include products that guarantee you will receive back what you contributed, and those that guarantee to provide a certain return on your investment. He says each type of product has a different cost structure and a different way of achieving the guarantee.
Lapedus says the main reason Liberty introduced its Agile range, which consists of a retirement annuity (RA) fund and preservation funds, is to reduce the risk to your pension. The Agile range enables you long before retirement to allocate some or all your savings to the Exact Income Fund, which guarantees a particular income at retirement.
Members of other RA funds can switch to the Agile RA, which will enable them to access the Exact Income Fund, he says.
WHAT YOU GET IF YOU BUY A LIVING OR A GUARANTEED ANNUITY
There are two main categories of annuity (pension): investment-linked living annuities (illas) and guaranteed annuities.
Living annuities. With an illa:
* You take the risk that you will have a sustainable income for the rest of your life. The sustainability of your income will depend on how much money you have saved, how you invest that money and how much you withdraw as a pension.
* You must withdraw between 2.5 and 17.5 percent of the annual capital value as a pension.
* When you die, you can bequeath any residue capital to your beneficiaries.
Guaranteed annuities. Guaranteed annuities provided by life assurance companies come in many shapes and forms. The more you want from an annuity, the more it will cost. The cost will affect the amount you receive as a pension.
The types of guaranteed annuities include:
* Level annuity. You receive the same amount every month for the full term of the annuity. The biggest threat to a level annuity is inflation, which will reduce the buying power of your pension every year.
Initially, a level annuity will be higher than the other types of guaranteed annuity. However, within a few years, as a result of inflation, the buying power of your pension will be significantly less than a pension from the other annuities.
* Escalating annuity. Your pension increases by a predetermined, fixed amount each year. The annuity increase may track, or be higher or less than the inflation rate.
Initially, an escalating annuity will be lower than a level annuity, but you have the certainty that you will be able to maintain your standard of living for the duration of the annuity.
Most life companies will permit an increase of no more than 20 percent a year on an annuity with a 10-year income guarantee, and 15 percent a year on an annuity without a guarantee period. It takes about nine years for an annuity linked to the inflation rate to catch up with a level annuity. So you take the pain upfront and not later on, when it may be essential that you receive a higher pension.
* Inflation-linked annuity. Your pension increases annually in line with the inflation rate.
* Guaranteed and then for life annuity. This type of annuity can be level, escalating or inflation-linked. Your annuity is guaranteed for a predetermined number of years, whether or not you live for that entire period. If you die before the end of the period (normally 10 years, but it can be up to 20 years), the annuity will, for the remainder of the guarantee period, continue to be paid to the person (or people) you nominate as a beneficiary (beneficiaries). If you outlive the guarantee period, the annuity will be paid for as long as you live. However, after the guarantee period, the annuity will stop when you die and there will be no residual capital.
* Capital-back annuity. This type of annuity can be level, escalating or inflation-linked.
A capital-back (also known as a back-to-back) annuity consists of:
– An annuity portion, which is the amount you receive as a pension; and
– A life assurance policy. A portion of your pension is deducted to pay the premium of the life assurance policy. The proceeds of the life policy are paid to your nominated beneficiary (or beneficiaries) when you die.
With capital-back annuities, you should pay a financial adviser only a single commission based on the amount you invest in the annuity, but nothing for the life assurance portion.
* Joint and survivorship annuity. This is a structure attached to a level, escalating or inflation-linked annuity. The aim is to provide the last-surviving of a couple with a pension for life. This feature is particularly important for couples where only one partner has built up retirement savings.
In many cases, you can select the income the surviving spouse will receive. This will also determine the pension that will be paid while both spouses or partners are alive.
The surviving partner’s annuity should not be decreased by more than two-thirds of the initial pension. It is estimated that it costs one-third less, not half, to support one person compared with two people, because many fixed costs, such as rates, electricity and transport, will not decrease.
* With-profit annuity. Your initial pension is guaranteed, but the increases are linked to the performance of the underlying investments. When investment markets are booming, you can expect above-inflation pension increases, but your pension could lag inflation when markets are in the doldrums. Over time, a with-profit annuity is likely to increase at a higher rate than inflation, because a proportion of the underlying assets of the investment portfolio are invested in shares. Equity markets have historically provided above-inflation returns.
Most with-profit annuities do not offer you a choice of underlying investments.

Thank You Hollard for the info

SA SAVING FACTS Take a closer look at the reality of South African saving habits now.

If the impact on your investments of the past three weeks gave you cause to panic, here’s a list of things you can do.
* Check your investment horizon. The longer you are invested, the less likely you are to suffer any investment losses. Equities are very volatile over the short term, but the effects of volatility decline over the longer term. You should be invested to meet a particular goal and to do that you will need to take a certain amount of risk. That means you may incur temporary or paper losses over a certain period. You should know what losses your portfolio could incur over various periods and take comfort in the fact that your investments are behaving as you would expect them to. A recent Old Mutual publication, Long-term Perspectives, shows how the range of annualised returns investors have earned from equities since 1924 narrows over longer holding periods. Annualised real (after-inflation) returns over five-year periods range between minus 14 percent and 31 percent, but over 20 years, the annualised real returns are always positive. They vary between two and 13 percent.
* Check how diversified your portfolio is. If you can’t stomach the risk you need to take, you will have to lower your sights and take less risk for a lower return. A little diversification - across asset classes and across regions - can give you more stable returns without detracting too much from the returns you can earn.
Old Mutual’s Long Term Perspectives shows that a simple 50:50 blend of South African equities and bonds reduces by more than 26 percent the maximum amount by which your portfolio may go down when the markets plummet.
* Invest with a manager who considers “downside risk”. Shaun Duddy, a business analyst at Allan Gray, says in the company’s latest quarterly newsletter that equity fund managers take on different levels of risk depending on the shares in which they choose to invest.
Duddy says managers can limit their participation in a market’s negative performance by taking different positions relative to the market and focusing on undervalued shares.
However, Duddy notes that there is no free lunch and that providing this protection can mean sacrificing some upside when markets perform well.
The benefits of this sacrifice are clear to see in times when the market falls, but even during bull markets there tend to be a significant number of “down” periods, making sacrificing some positive return in pursuit of capital protection a worthwhile investment strategy over the long term.
Duddy says when the performance of Allan Gray’s multi-asset Balanced Fund since inception is compared to that of the FTSE/JSE All Share Index, or Alsi (equities only), it shows that, over the 115 months the equity market was up, the Balanced Fund’s average monthly return was 2.7 percent, while the Alsi’s return was 4.5 percent. For the 74 months the market was down, the Balanced Fund lost, on average, only 0.5 percent, while the Alsi lost 3.4 percent.
Although this conservative approach can cost you over shorter terms it can pay off over longer terms. Over 15 years to the end of June, the Allan Gray Balanced Fund has an annualised return of 17.9 percent relative to the 17.12 percent delivered by the Alsi.
Malcolm Holmes, the head of portfolio management at Stanlib Multi-Manager, says Allan Gray has a particular style of investing, but you can also consider diversifying across managers with different investment styles to reduce investment risk.
He refers to Allan Gray’s style as a low-beta one, which reduces its sensitivity to the daily movements in markets, particularly downward ones.
A good multi-manager, who can blend a variety of skilful managers with different styles, can also deliver better returns than the market over time, with less of the downside when markets go through significant sell-offs, such as those experienced recently.
* Consider absolute return and derivative protection. Some unit trust funds are what are known as absolute return funds, which target a particular return over a period, such as three years, and also aim to avoid losses over certain periods, such as a year.
These targets may not always be met, but a good manager with an absolute-return focus may be worth considering if you have a shorter investment horizon.
Some managers use financial instruments known as derivatives to protect portfolios from downside risk. Remember that buying such protection comes at a price, which mutes returns.
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Thanks to Hollard

This month is Aids Awareness month and we at Hollard life would like to bring our HIV Product under your attention for your review.
If you’ve been diagnosed as HIV positive, you’re probably worried about your future – both in terms of health and finances. This specialist benefit is tailored specifically if you’re HIV positive, and offers life cover, accelerator and ancillary benefits. The benefits on this policy are the same as for all our other clients, with the only difference being the underwriting process we use.
Standalone benefits available:
• Life Cover
• Death Income
• Accidental Death
• Accidental Disability
• Impairment Income
Accelerator benefits available:
• Basic Critical Illness
• Core Critical Illness
• Core Impairment
Ancillary benefits available:
• Retrenchment
This benefit:
• Has a minimum entry age of 18
• Has a maximum entry age of 60 to 70 years old depending on the benefit
• Has one guarantee period that is experience rated (this is annually reviewable)
• Is available on level, 5% compulsory or age-rated premium patterns
• Offers maximum cover amounts ranging from R2 million to R10 million on lump sum benefits, and between R25,000 and R100,000 per month on income benefits
Please take note – n normal quote can be done, but the premium will not be correct as our underwriters will look at the case at application state and decision will be made on Viral load and DC 4count information received. Loadings will be applicable.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Don’t wait, let me quote today

Thank you Hollard

Get a lump sum pay out to ease financial worry should you become critically ill.
Developing a critical illness such as cancer can knock you off your feet – and knock your finances at the same time. To help shield you from money worries, critical illness insurance is a really good idea to have should you become very ill. After all, many very serious illnesses are actually inherited, and people don’t always know what’s lurking in their family tree.
Our Comprehensive Cancer Cover benefit gives you a financial boost should you be diagnosed with cancer. It also gives you peace of mind that you’ll be fully covered for treatment, so you can forget about your financial worries and focus on getting better.
Our Comprehensive Cancer Cover benefit:
• You are covered for the diagnosis and treatment of malignant tumours
• To claim the tumour can be invasive or non-invasive (non-invasive means it hasn't invaded the surrounding tissue)
• There are no exclusions
• It is available as a standalone or ancillary benefit
• The maximum sum assured is up to R1 000,000
• There is a six month waiting period for early cancers once the policy starts
• Once 100% of the benefit amount has been paid, the benefit will end
• The guarantee period is experience-rated
Our Early Cancer Cover benefit is an industry first. Why?
Because you’ll be covered if you’re diagnosed with a malignant tumour, as long as the tumour hasn’t invaded the surrounding tissue. This innovative benefit covers more than 17 carcinoma in situ events (which are usually excluded in other cancer insurance policies), including those of the breast, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, te**is, prostate, bladder, kidney and stomach.
Our Early Cancer Cover:
•Pays one claim per specific definition, and two claims in total during the life of the policy
•Pays 50% of the benefit amount in all instances, and 100% of the benefit amount if there is full organ removal
•Is available on an experience-rated premium guarantee term
•Has a 6-month waiting period
•Offers maximum cover of R100 000
•Is available to age 65 or for life
Thank you Hollard