Investing is where you buy something with the aim of making money from it. For example, you might buy financial products like stocks or cryptocurrency, or you might invest in property or a business.
You make money from your investments in two ways, depending on what you buy:
Investing is different from saving, and a bit more complicated. When you save money, you put it aside in a bank account where it grows with interest. The idea is that your money’s purchasing power (what you can buy) keeps up with inflation (the way things increase in cost over time). Saving is a great way to keep some money aside for a short-term goal.
Investing is a way to grow your money to surpass inflation over the long term. That’s because the earlier you start investing, the more time your money will have to grow with compounding returns. That makes it a better solution for a long-term goal like retirement.
One popular method is to buy financial products through an investment account, such as a retirement annuity. An investment account is a collection of financial products. The account might be overseen by a professional who makes decisions on your behalf. This person would manage your investment based on things like your risk appetite and your financial goals.
Your Wealth Bonus is not an investment portfolio, but in some ways it works a bit like one. Each product contributes to your long-term wealth in different ways - and some benefits track the market like an investment. Exactly which investments those benefits track depends on your product portfolio.
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Wealth Bonus isn’t a “real” investment portfolio, although it behaves a bit like one. Instead, it’s a collection of wealth-creating loyalty benefits you get for staying an active client. You’ll need to meet certain conditions to get access to the full amount, and any locked portions will be lost if you cancel or lapse the products that came with a Wealth Bonus benefit.
The money you eventually get from Wealth Bonus if you stay a client is as real as the cash you’d get from an investment portfolio.
The differences are:
You would pay into your investment directly and would choose how much to contribute. For example, you could increase your monthly contributions, or make once-off lump sum contributions.
But with Wealth Bonus, you don’t specify how much the product providers contribute. Instead, their contributions are based on your products.
In a traditional investment, the entire investment is yours. There are usually strict penalties for withdrawing or moving the money, but you can if you want to.
With Wealth Bonus, the money from your Wealth Bonus benefits becomes yours only when it unlocks. Unlocked money is yours to do with as you please.
Locked amounts are assigned to you but won’t be yours until you fulfill certain conditions - usually, remaining a customer for a certain time.
Wealth Bonus works differently to financial products like an investment portfolio or savings account. With these financial products, all the money is yours, so you could leave it to a beneficiary in your will. Depending on the type of financial product, your beneficiary might immediately get a payout, or be able to take over the account or investment.
But with Wealth Bonus, only unlocked money is yours. For most products, any money that is unlocked at the time of your death might be paid out to your beneficiaries or could become part of your estate, depending on which product made the contributions. Any locked money will be lost and we’ll close your Wealth Bonus.
Some life insurance policies allow someone else to take over the policy, in which case the new plan holder will also inherit that product’s Wealth Bonus.