# About to open Quinn Life Fund



## Bryan99 (4 Jan 2007)

Thanks to some helpful comments on these pages, I am about to open up a Quinn Life fund with a lump sum investment of €500 and monthly contributions of €250 split across the following funds (this will increase over time), for at least ten years.  I have little personal debt and am prepared to accept a degree of risk.  I understand that I will have to wait out any rises/falls etc.   

Euro Freeway 40%
Celtic Freeway 20%
China Freeway 15%
S&P500 25%

I would greatly appreciate any advice/comments on this.


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## hmmm (4 Jan 2007)

_deleted by poster_


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## Bryan99 (4 Jan 2007)

Interesting. Thanks. When I'm monitoring my funds how often/closely should I examine/change them? I mean if I'm thinking of ten-fifteen years down the road then surely day to day changes are not that important?


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## hmmm (4 Jan 2007)

_deleted by poster_


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## messyleo (7 Jan 2007)

I opened an account with quinn about 6 weeks ago, for regular premiums and went with:
50% Euro freeway
10% China
40% Celtic Freeway
as I wanted to minimise currency risk (obv excluding china). On the other hand it does mean that I have probably invested too heavily in ireland given I live and work here!  I am currently 23 and propertyless so the time period for investing is relatively long term, i.e. I wouldn't be looking to do anything for at least the next three years or so and could hold on longer without a problem to ride out any shocks etc.
It's always interesting to find out what fund split others have gone for


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## ShaneMc (7 Jan 2007)

My Current Split is:

Euro 65%
Celtic 15%
China 10%
Japan 5 %
Bio 5%.


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## Abbeykiller (8 Jan 2007)

As per your sentiment (but not your % s!) gravitygirl , I am now 0% in Irish shares due to the fact that with a job, house and pension here, I am invested enough in this market ....


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## ClubMan (8 Jan 2007)

Good point about not putting most or all of your eggs in one basket!


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## Guest122 (8 Jan 2007)

Currently have a mix of 
Euro 33%
UK 33%
US 33%

But hope to invest some more into China, Japan and Latin America in the coming year to bring my investments to Euro 25%, UK 25%, US 25% others above 25%

BB


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## slave1 (8 Jan 2007)

even spread, 8% return over last 11 months


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## pator (15 Jan 2007)

Am thinking of going with

Euro 40%
Celtic 35%
US 10%
Japan 5%
China 5%
Emerging 5%

Could this be considered a medium risk strategy? 
Am going with initial investment and lodgements every 2/3 months.  

If I decided I'd like to take a risk, does it make sense to open a sperate fund and invest say €4k in Biotech freeway for eg?    This then does not effect my main fund


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## Billo (15 Jan 2007)

I have

50% Euro
50% Celtic

I had intended to reduce the Celtic amount, but the returns have been very good so it has stayed at 50% so far. Hope it continues.

Billo


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## RainyDay (15 Jan 2007)

pator said:


> If I decided I'd like to take a risk, does it make sense to open a sperate fund and invest say €4k in Biotech freeway for eg?    This then does not effect my main fund


No - this makes no sense. Any gains or losses in the Biotech will have the same overall financial impact on you, regardless of whether it is in a seperate fund or not.


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## Omega (17 Jan 2007)

What advantage is there to having a savings account structured as a life assurance policy, since Quinn LIfe, for example, still charge a Revenue exit tax of 23%?


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## ClubMan (17 Jan 2007)

Do you mean compared to a deposit account that only charges 20% _DIRT_? The main advantage is that a unit linked fund should over the medium/long term far outperform deposits (depending on what specific fund and risk/reward profile you go for).


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## Omega (17 Jan 2007)

No, I meant what is the advantage of having it structured specifically as a life assurance policy?


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## ClubMan (17 Jan 2007)

Most or all unit linked funds are structured as _LA _policies. Not sure why.


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## ClubMan (17 Jan 2007)

SPC100 said:


> Note there is now an 8(?) yr rule which limits the usefullnes of Gross Roll Up.


Does that apply to all gross roll up unit linked funds? I thought that it was only to those that didn't deal with tax issues within the fund (e.g. the _UCITS _offered by _RaboDirect_)?


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## ClubMan (17 Jan 2007)

Gak!  That's going to be a real pain for indirect equity investors. Thanks for the link. Need to start studing this...


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## ClubMan (17 Jan 2007)

How does one calculate the assessable gain in the case of a unit linked fund? Especially if regular contributions are made over the years? And can one write off expenses, previously incurred losses and annual _CGT _allowance? And then how do they work out what the 23% exit tax applies to. Sounds like a recipe for a real mess if _Revenue _actually insist on this. Hopefully somebody will tell us that they do not actually plan to insist on this.


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## Carpenter (18 Jan 2007)

The terms and conditions in relation to the Quinn Life Freeway product state that the 23% tax charge "will be made on any growth that you achieve" and that "this tax charge....will be paid over by us to the Revenue Commissioners.  You will then have no further tax liability on your investment".


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## practitioner (20 Jan 2007)

Further to the query above, I incurred a capital loss in the past with a share sale and have paid 23% exit tax on a matured SSIA...am I entitled to claim this tax back by off setting one against the other?


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## ClubMan (20 Jan 2007)

No - the _SSIA _maturity/exit tax is not a capital gains tax.


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## jrewing (3 Feb 2007)

ClubMan said:


> How does one calculate the assessable gain in the case of a unit linked fund? Especially if regular contributions are made over the years? And can one write off expenses, previously incurred losses and annual _CGT _allowance? And then how do they work out what the 23% exit tax applies to. Sounds like a recipe for a real mess if _Revenue _actually insist on this. Hopefully somebody will tell us that they do not actually plan to insist on this.


 

Dos anybody know the answer to this ?


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## ClubMan (5 Feb 2007)

According to another post relating to this issue the _CGT _thing is a red herring (on my part) since the tax in question is not _CGT _at all. Also most or all fund providers will be calculating this tax on behalf of customers as it triggers which is not what I expected. That's my current understanding.


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## matrix1 (4 Jun 2007)

I am considering putting 700 per month into a Quinn policy with:

20% Euro Stoxx (€) [1% yrly mgmt]
20% Celtic (€) [1%]

5% UK FTSE 100 [1.2%]
10% US S&P 500 [1.2%]
5% Tech Nasdaq 100 [1.2%]
5% Biotech (subset Nasdaq Biotech?) [1.2%]

10% Latin America S&P Latin America 40 [1.5%]
10% Emerging Markets NY 50 ADR (looks like a mixture of China, India, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil - some overlap with Latin AMerica, China funds??) [1.5%]
10% Japan [1.5%]
5% China (maybe this is less risky than Biotech?) [1.5%]

What do you think? I am assuming that Quinn let you split into this many funds! Seems strange that Quinn need to charge as much as 1.2% to track the S&P500...

Thanks!


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## PMU (5 Jun 2007)

SPC100 said:


> *Re allocations*: If it costs you money to reblanance, I would try to rebalance by adding new funds.



 SPC100 is correct. If you intend to re-allocate you must do it by adding new funds to your policy rather than opening a new policy or re-allocating across policies.

  If you re-allocate between policies, you are in effect making an encashment of units in the policy from which you are re-allocating, so you pay tax on the gain in the units encashed.  If you re-allocate between funds in the same policy this does not occur. 

  I was about to re-allocate between policies (i.e. from Celtic in one policy to  S&P in another) when the very helpful lady in QL pointed out to me the tax implications of doing this. So instead I re-allocated from the Celtic fund to the S&P fund within the same policy,  i.e. I added a new S&P fund to the policy).


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## hattrick_12a (6 Jun 2007)

> > Originally Posted by pator
> > If I decided I'd like to take a risk, does it make sense to open a sperate fund and invest say €4k in Biotech freeway for eg? This then does not effect my main fund
> 
> 
> ...


This has raised a Q for me. 
What if someone wanted to do a reallocation. For the above, lets say, someone wanted to change the percentage stake they had in the Biotech freeway. Could they just put 4k directly in  Biotech freeway, and not have it spread accross the various funds in you overall fund?

Anyone do this? 

And, does it make sense if you wanted to rejig your allocations in the various funds? Thereby changing your risk/reward profile...


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## PMU (7 Jun 2007)

hattrick_12a said:


> This has raised a Q for me.
> What if someone wanted to do a reallocation. For the above, lets say, someone wanted to change the percentage stake they had in the Biotech freeway. Could they just put 4k directly in  Biotech freeway, and not have it spread accross the various funds in you overall fund?
> 
> Anyone do this?



Yes, and I think I answered this question in my post just above your one.



hattrick_12a said:


> T And, does it make sense if you wanted to rejig your allocations in the various funds? Thereby changing your risk/reward profile...



You're not changing your risk/reward profile: By re-allocation you are increasing your level of return at the same level of risk.  Essentially re-allocation is forcing you to sell high and buy low (or switch units from the fund that has outperformed to one that has underperformed or performed inline). So you are retaining the same level of risk.


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## messyleo (7 Jun 2007)

hattrick_12a said:


> This has raised a Q for me.
> What if someone wanted to do a reallocation. For the above, lets say, someone wanted to change the percentage stake they had in the Biotech freeway. Could they just put 4k directly in Biotech freeway, and not have it spread accross the various funds in you overall fund?
> 
> Anyone do this?
> ...


 
I take it this would count as one of your two free switches a year?


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## hattrick_12a (7 Jun 2007)

PMU said:


> Yes, and I think I answered this question in my post just above your one.
> 
> 
> 
> You're not changing your risk/reward profile: By re-allocation you are increasing your level of return at the same level of risk.  Essentially re-allocation is forcing you to sell high and buy low (or switch units from the fund that has outperformed to one that has underperformed or performed inline). So you are retaining the same level of risk.



If you had:

50% Celtic (lets say 5k)
50% Euro (lets say 5k)

and you changed it by adding a lump sum in the Biotech to have  
33% Celtic (lets say 5k)
33% Euro  (lets say 5k)
33% Biotech  (lets say 5k)

then you could continue your regular premiums from here

Would your risk/reward profile not be different above?
The 5k going into biotech is  not from another fund so you are not  "sell high and buy low" or vice versa. It could be savings or whatever...


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## PMU (8 Jun 2007)

hattrick_12a said:


> If you had:
> 
> 50% Celtic (lets say 5k)
> 50% Euro (lets say 5k)
> ...



 Hattrick12a: I think there is a terminology problem here.  To go back to my original post, I didn’t re-allocate, I re-balanced, i.e. moved units from a higher performing fund to lower performing funds while maintaining the original allocation between funds.  (By the way, QL regarded this as one switch.) 



You’re correct. If you add another fund you would change the overall asset allocation and thereby change the risk/reward profile.


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## cork (10 Jun 2007)

How long should you keep such investments?


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## emsman (14 Jun 2007)

Don't know an awful lot about the stock market but having met with a financial advisor yesterday he convinced me that I should put most of my monthly savings into investments rather than a bank account. So i have chosen Quinn-life. I have been thinkin about this for the past month and here is what i'm goin to do: Gonna put 700pm away into freeway funds:
40% Euro
20% Celtic
20% China
10% Tech
10% Bio

Not sure how i came up with this calculation but there it is!
Any opinions on this?


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## PMU (14 Jun 2007)

emsman said:


> Don't know an awful lot about the stock market but having met with a financial advisor yesterday he convinced me that I should put most of my monthly savings into investments rather than a bank account.
> Any opinions on this?



 emsman:  Did your financial adviser ask you to consider topping up your contributions to your pension plan or taking put a PRSA? There are tax advantages in investing this way.  If you have a mortgage did your financial adviser show you the benefits of early repayment of a mortgage, or of increasing your monthly repayments of the capital element? These are issues you should consider before you invest in unit funds. 



    Unfortunately, nobody can make an assessment of your asset allocation without knowing a variety of factors on your personal situation.  
I would suggest that your allocation 40% Euro 20% Celtic (i.e. 60% of your investments in euro denominated funds) is reasonably conservative (or rather it’s more conservative than mine) as it will not expose more than 60% of your portfolio to direct currency fluctuations; but you then allocate the rest to China, Tech and Bio; all of which expose you to currency risk and may well be more volatile. So there would appear to be an inconsistency between your allocations. My initial observation is why would you invest in Tech and Bio (sub-sets of the US market) without considering the US (S&P) fund (i.e. the main market)?   
That being said, these are relatively well diversified investments, but you may be in for a bumpy ride.


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## emsman (15 Jun 2007)

Here's my situation:

He did mention pension contributions to me. At the moment I pay 6.5% and my employer pays 15% pm into a pension scheme which is quite good. I don't have a mortgage yet but would be hoping to get one in the next 3-5 years.
My situation at the moment is: 

When I take away my expenses(rent, bills etc...) I am left with about 1200 per month. So by putting 700 into quinn-life that leaves  me with about 500 to invest in something else. A saving account maybe??
I don't really understand your question about why I invested in bio and tech and not US. Can you be a bit more clearer on this?


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## KS1 (19 Jun 2007)

The address on my passport and driving licence are different from my current address (on utitlity bill and visa bill). Does anybody know if this is a problem when opening a quinn life freeway fund (due to money laundering regs). rang them but they were a bit sketchy and waiting to hear back. just wondering if anyone had a similar situation.


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