The weekly Lap of The Blogs is postponed this week as I have a special request. We’ve been burning the candle at both ends as we have an insurance company who we’ve been meeting with in order to bring to market a competitor product to the “income for life products” like Manulife’s Income Plus and SunLife’s Sunwise Elite Plus. Essentially, I can’t go into the nitty gritty details as we have the actuaries working overtime trying to finalize the numbers right now, but suffice it to say that the product will be 99% the same with the only difference being we will be using low-cost index products to bring costs down (a lot).
So now I would like to ask anyone and everyone for naming suggestions. Sky’s the limit, and we want to ideally find a name that is easy to remember, and highlights the guaranteed nature of the product as well as the lower cost structure (which has been a big hurdle for many people). So please make your suggestions in the comments if you want to help us out! :)
(I had thought about naming it: Income For Life For People Who Are Good At Math, but it rated too high on the cheeky factor… ) :)
You can read some well thought out critiques of these types of products here:
High Cost of Peace of Mind (Canadian Capitalist)
Hard Sell (Michael James on Money)l
Follow up comments from Michael James
Comparing to a Bond Portfolio (Canadian Capitalist)
Don’t Ignore Dividends (Canadian Capitalist)
The argument basically boils down to the fact that these products are very long term in nature and you are paying extra fees for guarantees you statistically might not ever need. We have decided that since these products are going to be sold no matter what, we might as well address one main critique (very high cost) and take some market share and hopefully save investors some money. We are working overtime to bring this to market for the beginning of February.
Low-cost Guaranteed Income Plus
Thanks for the links. I haven’t had any inspiration yet for a good name, but I’ll keep thinking about it.
Here are some ideas for a name & tag line
“Life Allowance – Paying you more by charging you less.”
“Income Assured – Lower fees and still guaranteed for life.”
“Assured Pay – No risk, lowest fees, and a better night’s sleep.”
“RetirEASE – Guaranteed income, no risk, low fees, retire with ease.” or more catchy/cheesy “We offer the lowest fees so you can retire with ease.”
I like the first name the best… Pro-Financial’s Life Allowance, that has a nice flow to it and I think the name draws in some curiosity of what a life allowance could be.
Let me know if you pick one of mine, that’d be cool.
A few things popped into my head:
“Indexed LifeLine” and “LifeLine IndexPlus”
Freedom Income Funds or perhaps GIG Plus (Guaranteed Income with Growth).
Best of luck,
Tim
If they really are going to be simple, straight forward, and cheap why not something like “Simplicity For Life” or “Simplicity for Life Income Plan” or some other form of the name?
Sounds good so far, keep ’em coming! :)
The: You Know Your Getting Ripped Off – But We Take Less of Your Money Fund
Sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the links.
I’m thinking it’s like Income Plus but it’s more efficient, so perhaps Income Express?
The Income for Life Fund
The Provident Fund
The Life Plan Fund
The Guaranteed Salary Fund
The Secured Income Fund
The Provider Fund
The Planned Income Fund
The Pension Plus Fund
The Prudent Plan (I really like this one, but unfortunately it makes me think of Prudential)
The Security Fund
Salary For Life
And for a few odd-ball ideas:
The PIG Fund (Perpetual Income, Guaranteed)
– Bringing Home the Bacon since 2009! :P
– Guaranteed to keep putting food on table!
– It takes a while to grow, but it’s delicious in retirement!
The Allowance Fund
– Just like when you were a kid, but a heck of a lot more!
– Bridging the gap between childhood and retirement
– Retirement Fun without worries or expense
The Lazy Worker Fund
– Keep your salary, lose the work, and still get yearly raises!
– Work less, Earn more
(Assuming payments are indexed to inflation)
“The Income Sponge Fund – robust, cheap and simple.”
How about… Net More (or Netmore) Income?
Who doesn’t want to net more income? *grin*
Also how about “Alpha Guaranteed Income”, “Alpha Income Fund” or similar, as alpha is the measure of performance on a risk adjusted basis.
Undoubtedly over the head of the people wanting to invest in it, but it would be listed very highly alphabetically and the name’s significance and sophistication could be explained later.
Preet’s Sweet Cheap Guarantee
Thanks for all the great suggestions guys! I’ve been working on the project roadmap this whole weekend – we are looking to launch before the end of January and it will be a lot of work (especially as I’ll be in India for three weeks!).
I really like the Pro-Financial Life Allowance suggestion from Jordan, but all the suggestions are being tabled and we have yet to make a decision.
Any thoughts on “Pro-Index Personal Pension Plan”? “P4” for short? (or “Pro-Financial Personal Pension Plan” – Pro-Index is the division of Pro-Financial that manufactures the index funds)
I like the idea of “Personal Pension Plan”. It gives people the impression of being in control of their own retirement plan. With the turmoil in the markets today, I’m sure a lot of people would like to take their future into their own hands. Also, with the defined contribution pension going the way of GM’s sales, your product might fill the void.
“69 plan” will take 6 now,and give you 9 later if the resets work out……so Preet is your plan ready
@dj – soft launched September 28th. In other words: yes.
Who’s the winner? Which name did you end up picking, I don’t see anything about it on http://www.pro-financial.ca
@Jordan – not yet on the site, but available on FundSERV (i.e. orders can be accepted.) PRO Guaranteed Income. Short and to the point, eh? :)
Short but it just sounds the say as any other guaranteed income plan. I still prefer PRO Life Allowance
@Jordan – PRO Life would’ve led to too many jokes about a PRO Choice product. :)
Haha! I hadn’t thought of that, good call there!