the true cost of unit-linked management fees

Unit-linked fees in 2022 average 0.80% per year, according to the latest study by Good Value For Money published in early August.

In your life insurance contract, you have the option of placing your savings in a fund in euros and in units of account, these riskier investments but with potentially higher returns. For each unit of account or asset, fees, which vary from one insurer to another, are levied.

According to the 2022 analysis of Good Value for Moneythey amount to 0.80% per year on average.

What do unit-linked fees include?

Unit-linked fees depend on each type of asset and each insurer. It is therefore important for the saver to check, or even negotiate, these costs with his insurance company. But what do these so-called current costs include?

  • Asset manager compensation for the management of financial support. It applies in particular if you choose managed management, or management under mandate (which allows you to delegate the management of CUs to the management company);
  • Retrocessions returnedthat is to say the costs transferred to the distributors of the contract;
  • Any financial “outperformance” fees ;
  • The margin of the management company.

You should know that these costs are less visible to savers, since the performance of the UC already takes them into account.

For which units of account are the fees higher?

The fees “may vary depending on the nature of the supports, in particular on real estate supports of the SCPI type for which they are much higher”, recalls Good Value For Money. Indeed, the insurer can apply additional costs for specific UC: trackers, live securities or even SCPI.

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“The fixed costs levied by the asset manager are indicated in the legal documents (DICI) of each medium. But in reality, the fees actually charged, namely the ongoing fees, are almost always higher than the fixed fees due to the transaction costs on the one hand, as well as the so-called outperformance fees”, adds the firm in its study.

Life insurance and PER: units of account will no longer hold any secrets for you

Where can I find this information?

Since July 1 of this year, details of these costs have been available to all savers in the pre-contractual information on life insurance contracts. You will find there: management company namethe gross and net performance of assets for the previous year, the asset management feesthem total coststhe final performance and the product commission retrocessions. Of course, you can request, for each of your units of account, the details of the costs directly from your insurer and compare them with those of other contracts.

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