Letter of the Day | NCB defends OMNI instrument

THE EDITOR, Sir:

OMNI Educator is a medium- to long-term insurance and investment product that continues to provide customers with the opportunity to save towards their children's university education, offering the most attractive grant in the country at 35 per cent.

It takes a village to raise a child and, certainly, we had taken that into account when redesigning the product that now affords aunts, uncles, grandparents and godparents the ability to open policies for the children in their lives, in furtherance of providing them with life's most invaluable asset - an education.

With this in mind, our product development team in 2017 sought to boost customer value by increasing the benefits of the product. These include:

- An increase in the grant benefit from 20 per cent to the now 35 per cent.

- The insurance benefit on the policy was improved to provide basic coverage of $2.3m with the option of adding $6m. This serves to protect the child/beneficiary in the event of death of the owner/insured.

With reference to letter to the editor, published in The Gleaner on Thursday, August 2, 2018, we take this opportunity to educate the public regarding the fees applied on the OMNI Educator policy. There are two fees associated with the plan: policy fee and the cost of insurance.

The policy fee is the administrative cost associated with maintaining the policy, which is now $500 per month. The cost of insurance covers the cost of the basic insurance benefit on the policy and is determined by the age and gender of the insured. There is no medical requirement to obtain this benefit; it is therefore available to everyone who purchases the policy, irrespective of health status.

Our clients also have an option of securing up to $6m in additional insurance protection that requires medical screening, and, therefore, comes at a significantly lower cost when compared to the basic coverage. All other costs are within the client's control and are determined by the age of the policy at the time of surrender (withdrawal or closure).

We urge our clients to be mindful of the fact that the OMNI Educator is designed for medium- to long-term saving (minimum five years). The appreciation of the value over this time period offsets fees. It is at this point that surrender fees are their lowest. Beyond that, saving over longer periods puts the owner/insured in a better position to effectively provide for their loved one's education.

Flagship Product

OMNI Educator remains a flagship product for the NCB Insurance Company, providing a simple, affordable solution tor planning a child's education. Starting at $3,500 per month, parents, grandparents, godparents, uncles and aunts can save to ensure their children have brighter tomorrows. Since its inception in 2004, we have helped more than 2,960 policyholders with over $191.5m in education grant to tertiary institutions, on top of what the policyholders themselves saved and earned in interest.

We have also recently expanded the opportunities available to our customers with our inaugural scholarship programme launched in May and spanning the primary to tertiary levels, available to all Omni Educator policyholders.

This remains the most attractive and helpful Jamaican-dollar product in the market to help Jamaicans save to give their loved ones a chance at tertiary-level education, while insuring those benefits in the event of an untimely death.

We welcome our customers' feedback and continue to look for opportunities to help them put their best lives forward.

NICHOLE BRACKET WALTERS

Manager - Group Marketing and Communications

NCB Jamaica