Critical illness insurance with a single premium ?
Friday, November 14th, 2008The funds are designed along unit trust lines in that they are divided into units each representing an equal proportion of the fund’s assets, and are valued at regular intervals with unit prices adjusted to these valuations. The purchase of a block of units can be made only through the medium of a critical illness insurance policy; in fact, in making such a purchase, the investor does not become the legal owner of the units (as he does when buying unit trust units) but of a policy whose legal form is a claim against a critical illness insurance company. Since the sum assured on the policy is, for the older lives, slightly more than the premium paid, the critical illness claim risk for the company is minimal, and what the investor is really interested in is the investment and tax benefits of the fund he chooses.
The property fund invests in commercial, industrial and occasionally agricultural property and land. Normal offices, shops and factory or warehouse buildings form the bulk of the portfolio of investments, but some funds also themselves undertake small developments, that is, they buy a site, arrange finance, erect and finally let a building, in the hope of establishing a value in excess of the costs involved. One fund may, for example, have invested heavily in offices which are currently yielding a relatively low return by way of rentals but which are mostly due for rent reviews within a short period, at which time a substantial.
Increase in rents might be expected, which would increase the capital value of the properties. Another might have a large proportion of its money invested in “rackrented” shops in High Streets up and down the country, where the level of rents chargeable is very closely related to the current state of retail spending by consumers. The actual “mix” of types of property in the fund, and facts such as whether a few single properties account for a large proportion of the money invested, can have considerable impact on the performance of the fund.
