Ceylinco Life to promote new Flexi Plans at 7th Retirement Planning Month
View(s):Life insurance leader Ceylinco Life said this week it would step up efforts to promote retirement planning on a country-wide scale in May, with the help of three new flexible retirement plans launched in April 2014.
May has been the company’s designated Retirement Planning Month since 2008, and every year, nearly 5,000 sales personnel from Ceylinco Life are tasked with focussing on this segment of business during the month, according to a company statement.
“This year, the launch of three new Ceylinco Life Flex Retirement Plans is expected to lend fresh impetus to this campaign, which involves promotional activities and door-to-door interaction with customers at branch level island-wide,” it said.
Of the three new schemes, Flexi Plan 1 can be commenced with as little as Rs 1,000, with payments made monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annually for a term of five years or more.
Flexi Plan 2 requires a single payment of Rs 100,000 or more, and matures in 10 years or later as per the customers’ wish, while Flexi Plan 3 also commences with a single payment of Rs 100,000 or more, but can be structured for five to nine years.
All Ceylinco Life Retirement Plans generally provide a higher accumulation rate than most Fixed Deposit or Savings rates offered by banks, the company said. The issued rate for April 2014 for example, is 11.42 per cent. Returns from retirement plans are exempt from tax.
“The need for retirement planning continues to assume greater importance in countries like Sri Lanka where the population is ageing and the majority is not covered by retirement schemes,” Ceylinco Life Managing Director/CEO R. Renganathan said. “This is an area that we identified for special attention more than a decade ago, and the Retirement Planning Month initiative helps take the message to a wide cross section of the target segment.”
He said the new retirement plans developed by the company were designed to make retirement planning easy to understand, easy to start, and scalable as the customer’s financial capacity grows.
Throughout May 2014, Ceylinco Life’s branches and sales team will focus on creating greater awareness of the importance of retirement planning and the many options it offers in this sphere. Existing life policyholders of the company who do not have retirement plans and purchase one with a monthly contribution of Rs. 2500 or more during this period would be rewarded with a Ceylinco Life Retirement Plans branded travelling bag, the company said.