Metlife Wealth Builder Review

Metlife Wealth Builder is the third most expensive regular savings plan in the market.

The Metlife Wealth Builder savings plan is similar to other savings plan offerings by life insurance companies with investment options of mutual funds and a couple of ETFs.

Minimum Contributions & Investment Terms

Minimum Contributions - USD 600 per month / USD 7,200 per year

The Metlife Wealth Builder offers the following terms - 5 years to 25 years.

Capital Protection

The Metlife Wealth Builder Savings Plan is not ‘Capital Protected’ regardless of the term selected. 

If you are looking for ‘Capital Protected’ Savings Plans, read this review - Investors Trust S&P500 Index Review.

Investment Options (Where the money can be invested)

The Metlife Wealth Builder Savings Plan offers around 140 mutual funds to choose from.

The funds offered are from some of the top fund managers in the world, but only a couple of low-cost ETFs or index funds are offered.

Some of the mutual funds offered have annual charges as high as 2.5% per annum.

Charges

Policy Administration Charge - 3.5% of Account Value of Capital Account 

Management and Expense Charge - 
0-30 months - 1.44% p.a.
31-60 months - 1.20% p.a.

Premium Charge - 5% p.a. of target premiums

The Metlife Wealth Builder savings plan offers bonuses and enhanced allocations, based on the total amount of annual premium paid. 

The simplest way to understand charges is to see what you would end up with - at a certain level of monthly contribution, and assumed growth rate, and net of all product charges. See the section below.

What you would end up with if:

You save - USD 1,000 per month, for 5 years,

You paid - USD 60,000 in 5 years,

You get at the end of the term - USD 68,145 with an assumed growth rate of 8% (net of charges).

What an actual quote looks like:

Click on the images below to magnify them. 

Jurisdiction - (Where your money is held)

Metlife UAE is a subsidiary of Metlife Inc., jurisdiction where your money is held - is the United States of America.

Here is an excerpt from the Metlife Inc. 10K form filing.

Overview

In the U.S., our life insurance companies are regulated primarily at the state level with some products and services also subject to federal regulation. In addition, MetLife, Inc. and its U.S. insurance subsidiaries are subject to regulation under the insurance holding company laws of various U.S. jurisdictions.

As a non-bank systemically important financial institution (“non-bank SIFI”), MetLife, Inc. is also subject to regulation by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Federal Reserve Board”) and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (collectively, with the Federal Reserve Board, the “Federal Reserve”) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”).

Furthermore, some of MetLife’s operations, products and services are subject to consumer protection laws, securities, broker-dealer and investment adviser regulations, environmental and unclaimed property laws and regulations, and to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). 

Our international insurance operations are principally regulated by insurance regulatory authorities in the jurisdictions in which they are located or operate. In addition, our investment and pension companies outside of the U.S. are subject to oversight by the relevant securities, pension and other authorities of the countries in which the companies operate.

Our non-U.S. insurance businesses are also subject to current and developing solvency regimes which impose various capital and other requirements. As a global systemically important insurer (“G-SII”), MetLife, Inc. may also become subject to additional capital requirements. See “— International Regulation.”

U.S. Regulation

Insurance Regulation

State insurance regulation generally aims at supervising and regulating insurers, with the goal of protecting policyholders and ensuring that insurance companies remain solvent. Insurance regulators have increasingly sought information about the potential impact of activities in holding company systems as a whole, and some jurisdictions have adopted laws and regulations enhancing “group-wide” supervision, as supported by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (“NAIC”) Solvency Modernization Initiative. See “— NAIC” for information regarding group-wide supervision.

Each of MetLife’s insurance subsidiaries operating in the United States is licensed and regulated in each U.S. jurisdiction where it conducts insurance business. The extent of such regulation varies, but most jurisdictions have laws and regulations governing the financial aspects and business conduct of insurers. 

Disclaimer: This article is assumed to be accurate at the time of publishing, and represents the personal opinion of the author. If you wish to correct/contest any of the following, please do so in the comments below. I am open to correcting errors if any. All opinions are welcome.