EarlyIncome Annuity Plan¹

What’s included?

Your savings

Your savings is made up of:

• Guaranteed cash value in your plan that builds up gradually throughout the accumulation period
  
• Non-guaranteed annual dividends and interest rate (earned on any accumulated dividends and interest and any accumulated Monthly Annuity Payment⁶). The dividend scale for distributing any dividends is determined by the Company and may vary from time to time at the Company’s absolute discretion. If you withdraw any accumulated dividends and interest under your policy or if any adjustment affecting the dividends occurs during the policy term, the amount of future Monthly Non-guaranteed Annuity Payment may be adjusted accordingly

See more about our policy dividends. 

Accumulation period and annuity payment which suit your needs

You can choose how your annuity will be paid to you

• Begin receiving your Monthly Annuity Payment⁶ for 20 years from month 13, 37 or 61 or to age 99² from month 37 or 61 of taking out the plan, depending on the accumulation period you choose
• Leave your annuity income in the plan to rollover and grow with interest, if any

Life cover

Enjoy life cover with your total premiums paid⁹ fully protected. If you were to die, your beneficiary(ies) will be entitled to the death benefit.

Please refer to the respective product brochure for detailed product features and product risks,and the policy provisions for the detailed terms and conditions. 

You can choose in writing on how the death benefit will be paid⁷. The beneficiary(ies) will receive

• the death benefit in one lump sum payment; or
• any Monthly Annuity Payment⁶ accumulated before death of the life insured in one lump sum, plus any unpaid Monthly Annuity Payment⁶ until the end of the annuity period (this option is only available if it is elected during life insured’s lifetime and the death of the life insured occurs in or after the 4th year after the policy begins)

Flexible premium payment

You can choose the premium payment option that works for you. Pay monthly or annual premiums for 3 years or 5 years, or choose the aggregate premium⁸ option. The total amount you need to pay is fixed at the beginning of your policy so there are no surprises.

Please refer to the respective product brochure for detailed product features and product risks,and the policy provisions for the detailed terms and conditions. 

Am I eligible?

EarlyIncome Annuity Plan is available to the Proposed Insured who should be aged 35² to 75² (only applicable to 3-year payment policies) or 35² to 70² (only applicable to 5-year payment policies). To age 99² annuity period option is only available to the Proposed Insured who should be aged 55² to 70². The plan is subject to the relevant requirements on nationality and/or addresses of the policyholder and/or life insured as determined by the Company from time to time.

Please refer to the respective product brochure for detailed product features and product risks,and the policy provisions for the detailed terms and conditions. 

More help when you need it

When life surprises you, additional benefits included in this policy can offer you more support at no extra premiums.

Additional accidental death cover¹⁵

This extra benefit cover you if you die as a result of an accident before the end of the policy term or the age of 80¹⁴(whichever is earlier). In this case, we’ll pay an additional sum equal to 30% of the Total Premiums Paid⁹ on top of the death benefit payable to your beneficiary(ies).

Terminal illness benefit¹⁵

If you are diagnosed with a terminal illness before the end of the policy term or the age of 80¹⁴(whichever is earlier) and are given a death prognosis of not more than one year, we will pay your plan’s life cover benefit in advance.

Unemployment benefit¹³

If you are unemployed for more than 30 consecutive days before the age of 65², you can defer payment of your premiums for up to 365 days. You will still enjoy the full protection of your policy throughout. Unemployment benefit is not applicable to policy with aggregate premium⁸ option.

Please refer to the respective product brochure for detailed product features and product risks,and the policy provisions for the detailed terms and conditions. 

All the information you need in one place

EarlyIncome Annuity Plan Product Brochure

See more details of your EarlyIncome Annuity Plan.

Policy dividend for Participating Products

More about participating policy

We issue participating life insurance policies providing both guaranteed and non-guaranteed benefits. The guaranteed benefits may include the Death Benefit, Guaranteed Cash Value and other benefits that vary depending on your chosen plan. The non-guaranteed benefits comprise the policy dividends which allow policyholders to share in the financial performance of the life insurance operation. 

For EarlyIncome Annuity Plan, the policy dividends, if any, is in the form of:

Annual dividends, which are declared by us on an annual basis. Once declared, the amount of annual dividends for the year is guaranteed. 

Please refer to the “Product Summary” section of product brochure for more details.

What factors will affect your dividends?

The annual dividends, if any, is not guaranteed. The size of the dividends and whether it is payable depend on factors including but not limited to:

• The investment performance of the assets supporting the policies;
• Claims, lapses and expenses experiences; and
• The long-term expected future performance of investment and other experiences mentioned above.

If the performance over the long term is better than expected, the dividends paid would increase. If the performance is below expectations, the dividends paid would decrease. 

Please refer to the “Key risks – Non-guaranteed benefit” section of product brochure for more details. 

What are the key benefits of participating policies?

The key feature of participating policies over other forms of insurance policies is that in addition to the guaranteed benefits, you will also benefit from an additional annual dividend payment if the investment performance is better than that required to support the guaranteed benefits. The better the performance, the greater the dividend payments, and, conversely, the worse the performance, the lower the dividend payments.

Dividend philosophy

Establishing a risk-sharing mechanism

We have a clear interest in the performance of your participating policy as our participating business operates on the principle of sharing risks between you and ourselves to achieve a reasonable balance. We regularly review the level of dividends payable to you. Both the past actual performance and management's expectation of the long-term future performance will be assessed against the assumed level. If variances arise, consideration will be taken for sharing these with you through dividend adjustments.

Fairness across policyholder groups

To ensure fairness between policyholders of participating products, we will carefully consider the experience (including investment performance) of various policy groups such as products, product generations and currencies and issue years so that each policy group will receive a fair return based mainly on its own performance. To balance the interest between you and us, a dedicated committee formed from a group of professionals will provide independent advice on managing the participating policies and determining the dividends.

Stable long-term returns

We try to maintain a stable dividend through periods of market fluctuations. When considering adjusting the dividend scales, we strive to maintain a more stable payout to you by smoothing, which means the dividend level will only be changed if the actual performance is significantly different from the assumed level over a period of time, or if management's long-term future performance expectations change substantially.

Rather than changing dividends in response to short-term fluctuations, smoothing allows us to keep dividends unchanged or make less severe adjustments than would otherwise have been the case. As such, it is important not to necessarily view any short-term investment (over and under) performance as an indication of an upcoming change in dividends. This will be considered together with longer-term historical investment performance and future expectations, as well as the other non-investment variances.

Investment policy and strategy

We follow an asset strategy that:

i) Helps to ensure that we can meet the guaranteed benefits that we have committed to you;

ii) delivers competitive long-term returns to you through non-guaranteed dividends and bonuses; and

iii) Maintains an acceptable level of risk

The assets supporting the participating policies consist of fixed income and growth assets. The fixed income assets predominately include fixed income assets issued by corporate entities with good credit ratings (average A-rated or above) and long-term prospects. Growth assets, including equity-type investments and alternative investments such as property, private equity or hedge funds, as well as structured products including derivatives, are utilised to deliver returns that are more reflective of economic performance over the long term.

Our investment portfolios are well diversified across various types of assets, and are invested in varied geographical markets (mainly Asia, the United States and Europe), currencies (mainly USD) and industries. The assets are carefully managed and monitored according to our own acceptable level of risk.

Note: there could be slight deviation from the above range due to market fluctuation. 

We consider other factors when deciding the actual asset allocations, including, but not limited to:

• Past investment performance of the assets supporting the policies;
• Current and expected future market conditions;
• Guaranteed and non-guaranteed benefits of the policies;
• The acceptable risk level of the policies; and
• Expected economic growth after adjustment for inflation over a period of time. 

Subject to our investment policy, actual asset allocation could deviate from the above target asset allocation from time to time.

The policy of determining the dividends (if any) and accumulation of interest rates may be reviewed and adjusted by us from time to time. For more updated information, please visit our website [https://www.hsbc.com.hk/insurance/info/].

You may also visit the above website to refer our dividend history. The past or current performance of our business may not be a guide for future results.