Investing via life insurance companies, a basic question

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qwerty-2023

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After reading through this forum, it seemed that the best way to invest for my future while not having to deal with taxes myself would be via life insurance companies like Zurich, Standard Life, etc. Following this logic, I have opened a few investment bonds this/last year. This is my first experience investing, I'm in my twenties.

However, my parents (who are not Irish) noted that I should be careful to make sure I didn't buy an insurance product rather than a basic retail investment fund. For example the website of Standard Life and the investment bond application form refer to things like "whole of life cover" and "lives assured".

This is probably a really stupid question but... how do I know / check that my investments are indeed just basic investments (i.e. same as investing spare cash in an ETF on DeGiro, except that here taxes are taken care of), that I can cash out whenever I like, rather than some sort of insurance product? My policy documents don't say anything like that, they only state any early exit fees, so I should be fine... right? The term "life insurance policy" is confusing me big time!

Thanks in advance for any explanation! :)
 
Was it a investment fund you invested in like Zurich Primsa etc more than a bond or was it a life insurance policy?
 
It was an investment bond, and I picked the fund it was invested it (like Prisma etc) but the fact that it's a life insurance company is confusing me! Also I received a "policy" certificate for each bond.
 
I can't imagine many examples where savings like this in your 20s makes sense.

A small amount would have educational value.

Otherwise priority should be towards your pension and housing ?
 
Your logic was correct.

You're fine.

These are written as insurance/assurance contracts. The death benefit is the value of the fund. There was a time when it was 101% of the bid value of the units but, in the absence of another explaination, I think the actuaries got a but stingy.

Most pension policies are also written as 'insurance policies'.

What you don't say is why your parents threw a spanner in your works? Careful about what, exactly?
 
Thank you @Protocol and @GSheehy for the explanation, that makes sense and is very reassuring!

GSheehy said:
What you don't say is why your parents threw a spanner in your works? Careful about what, exactly?
Click to expand...

From what I understand, in my home country it would be unusual to invest via an insurance company so I think they're worried that I am just paying insurance premiums that only pay out when I die or get sick or something! I know it sounds silly, but they're my parents afterall so I thought better safe than sorry and I'd check on here.

presidenttttt said:
Otherwise priority should be towards your pension and housing ?
Click to expand...

I'm already maxing out AVCs (not a big amount as I'm in the public sector so the main scheme already counts towards my tax limit), and I'm living in my partner's flat. It's TINY (33 sqm!) but very cheap mortgage, and really well located so we are not in a rush to move. We likely won't move for about 5 years, and at that stage we may or may not use the flat's equity as deposit for the next place.

Because of this, I decided to put 50/50 of my savings each month towards cash/investments since I don't know what the future holds just yet!
 
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