Money Mistake: I Hate AXA Honey Saver 5 and AXA Philippines

 Welcome to the first ever Money Mistake Series on The Currency Of Everything.

Everyone has them, no matter how careful you may be with your budgeting or finances. Whether it's a wrong financial decision or a complete mistake, you still lost your hard-earned money. Who in their right minds want that to happen anyway?

Even for savers and investors, it's something that is unavoidable especially when you're also going through with trial and error the first time you try your hand at investing and what products to choose. It's hard enough to find money, plan for a good budget and in the end you will not even get to enjoy the harvests of your hardwork. It's also hard to admit that you made a mistake, but the only way to get over it is to accept and finally find a solution.

The opinion expressed below is solely my own, crafted from my own experiences.

My Money Mistake is Investing in AXA Philippines.

Getting their insurance account, Honey Saver 5, was a very immature mistake in my part. Even now, I know I'm still a novice when it comes to finances, but even now I already know what a bad thing it was to get the AXA insurance. It was almost a year ago when I opened an account with them, and at that time I was so glad that a bank-backed insurance company opened on my Metrobank branch, and it was very near my place of work. I was high with the fact that I was going to open something that could set me at a stable financial footing in the future, and I was very much glad that I could afford the premium, which was set at P1,222.27 a month or P12,886.00 a year.

This is the actual Policy document for AXA Insurance Honey Saver 5. This is my document, my own personal copy, my property.

So that's my Honey Saver 5 policy, a traditional 5-years-to-pay insurance policy that has a Basic Sum Insured of P100,000 until Age 100.
 

Insured for 100k

My understanding of how my policy worked was through the information given to me by my AXA Financial Advisor. Honey Saver 5 will require about P64,430.00 in a monthly installment over a 5-year period. The Sum Insured is immediately in effect upon the first day of enrollment and payment of the first premium.

In my mind, I wouldn't mind paying P64,430.00 if I was going to get insured for 100k until age 100. I was a trainee at that time, so the premium of P1,200 stretched my budget a little. I got the document, but I trusted AXA enough to just give it a once over, but I did my research, learned about personal financial managment in baby steps, and for 2 months now, my AXA insurance left me with an empty feeling.

AXA has Small Returns... Very small cash values

You can see from the picture above the breakdown of my yearly policy, the cash value it has accumulated as well.

In the First Policy Year, which I would have paid P12,886.00 for has a P0.00 value,
and my Second Policy Year I would have paid P25,722 in total for would be valued at P9,800.00.  

for me that's alright since that's always how insurance starts out. I've learned that for about 1-3 years of payment, it would go to covering the total cost of one's policy. But it is in the subsequent years that worry me.

On my Fifth Policy Year, where I would have paid a total of P64,430.00, my last year of paying, my policy has a cash value of P26,000.00, which is barely half of what AXA had hauled from my premium payments.

If one wanted to get back the total P64,000.00 one has invested in 5 years, it is about impossible. Once my policy reaches its 20th year (I would have been 44 years old by then) the cash value would only be P35,300.00.
.

In the end... you don't even get what you paid for....

I've been a good payer until this month. Because after so much deliberation... I decided to surrender my policy.

Yep. Money wasted... because this is my first year, I cannot get back the monthly premium I paid as the value of my policy is a big fat ZERO. It's funny how AXA can't even give back even a fraction of my money. Sometimes I want to lash out at the unfairness of it all.

I truly regret the day I joined AXA.