Prudential PRULink InvestGrowth Review

Prudential’s PRULink InvestGrowth is a single premium investment-linked plan with various flexible options.

With this plan, you can determine how your wealth will grow and manage it according to your needs and goals.

This policy lets you invest in 1 or more sub-funds based on your preference.

Besides, you can invest via cash on hand, your Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) Account, or your CPF Ordinary Account (CPF-OA) and CPF Special Account (CPF-SA) funds.

This review explores Prudential’s PRULink InvestGrowth to help you decide if it’s the best policy to meet your needs.

My Review of the Prudential PRULink InvestGrowth

The Prudential PRULink InvestGrowth is a great option for those looking to make a single premium or regular investment.

There is no lock-in period – which makes it an attractive option to choose from.

It’s also one of the few policies that allow you to invest your SRS funds and CPF savings – similar to the AIA Invest Easy, potentially yielding higher returns than endowment and annuity plans.

The PRULink InvestGrowth has no minimum investment period or surrender charges, something many ILPs do not offer.

Its Direct Income Option is also a plus, letting you make withdrawals monthly, acting like an investment-linked annuity like the Manulife SmartRetire V.

This means you can access any amount from your policy without worrying about additional fees.

However, the 2.5% to 3% premium charge may be considered comparatively high compared to the 1% – 2% range offered by competing policies.

Additionally, I feel that the 1.5% assurance charge for the premium top is high if you opt for cash or SRS payment – especially when policies like the NTUC Income WealthLink offer 0% annual charges.

I believe if you’re looking to invest your SRS funds, the HSBC Life Wealth Invest is the best as it only charges you a one-time sales charge (for SRS) as compared to other ILPs that charge you both a sales charge and annual fee.

CPF-wise, the HSBC Life Wealth Invest has the lowest fees in the market at 1.6% p.a, making it an extremely attractive alternative for you.

But if you’re looking to invest cash in an ILP and can commit for X years, I suggest reading our post on the best ILPs in Singapore.

Alternatively, you can talk to your financial advisor regarding investing via iFAST if you’re investing via CPF or cash; at least, you can negotiate the fees you’ll incur with them, and there are more funds to choose from.

However, I’m no financial advisor, so take this review as an opinion.

If you need unbiased advice or a second opinion, which I highly recommend you do, we partner with MAS-licensed financial advisors to help you.

They’ve helped thousands of our readers compare policies to find the best option for their needs.

And if you’re about to invest a single premium of $6,000, you definitely want to make sure you’re making the best decision.

Click here for a free non-obligatory second opinion.

Criteria

• Minimum single premium of $6,000
• Minimum recurring single premium of $300

General Features

Premium Payment

The PRULink InvestGrowth offers 4 ways to make your premium payments – using CPF-OA, CPF-SA, SRS, or cash.

You can also take up a single premium or a recurring single premium policy.

Take a look at the table below for the minimum premium amounts:

Protection

Death Benefit

In the event of death, PRULink InvestGrowth shall pay the higher of

• 110% of all total premiums received, including top-ups minus withdrawals, or
• the full value of all units in your account.

Subsequently, the policy terminates.

Key Features

Increasing Your Premiums

Looking to invest more? Well, the PRULink InvestGrowth lets you do that if you’re on the recurring single premium payment plan.

There are, however, minimum increases depending on your policy type.

Ad-hoc Premium Top-Ups

You can top up your premium by making ad-hoc top-ups to your policy, set at a minimum of $2,000 per top-up.

Partial Withdrawals

With this plan, you can get the flexibility to dip into your investment funds whenever you need to with partial withdrawals.

Just keep in mind that there is a minimum withdrawal of $1,000, and there needs to be a minimum of $1,000 left in your account after the withdrawal.

Fund Switching

The policy allows you to switch between funds with ease.

Direct Income Option

If you selected cash as your source of funds, you could add the Direct Income Option benefit to your policy.

This benefit means that you can have income directly deposited every month into your bank account.

The minimum monthly payment is $100, and you can adjust the amount during the payment period, subject to the minimum amount.

The length you can withdraw depends on your account value, and when your account value has 2 months left, Prudential will disburse the entire amount to you, and this policy terminates.

You can also stop this benefit, subject to approval, by letting Prudential know.

This is treated as a withdrawal so that it will affect your death benefit.

This is a great feature and can be seen as something similar to an investment-linked annuity plan.

PRULink InvestGrowth Fees and Charges

Premium Charge

You will incur a premium charge every time you make a premium payment.

The following table shows how much premium charge you’ll incur based on your policy type:

As you can see, the premium charge for SRS and Cash policies is 3% for single premium and top-up premium.

Further, for e-top premium, the charge is 2.5%. By contrast, there is no premium charge for CPF-OA and CPF-SA policies.

Assurance Charge

If you purchase your policy using cash or SRS, there is an assurance charge of 1.5% for any premium payments you’ve made.

Fund Management Charges

This charge is not imposed by PRULink InvestGrowth, but rather by the funds you invest in.

You will be investing in PRULink funds, which at a quick glance, charges up to 5% of sales charges and between 1% to 1.5% in annual charges.

The sales charge works similarly to the premium charge mentioned above, while the annual charge is calculated as a percentage of your fund value.

PRUlink InvestGrowth Summary

References

• Product Brochure
• Product Summary (SP)
• Product Summary (RSP)