I have never understood how these life or annuity "investments" that are so popular in Singapore make any financial sense at all. Really look hard at hard at what the real return is for these products, when you strip out all the fees and charges.
Most people here intend to return home to places where they pay tax on capital gains, income on these things is also tax free as long as it is not brought onshore. They issue a credit card out of say the Isle of Man and all spending is tax free (technically if you use the card in your home country that is repatriation but not very traceable), for people who intend to spend much of their retirement travelling it is a handy option though I agree you pay for it, that said without the investment advisors most would not know or be too lazy to figure out how to do it without paying the fees. Additionally you can keep paying in when you could not if you did not set it up while non-resident in many cases.
That said, they are a bit of a rip off in terms of the size of fees. On these term life things as well note the fees are generally on portfolio value not payments in, that means a lot more cash.
As for annuities themselves, if you take the advisors away, there is nothing wrong with them. End of the day a preference share is essentially a perpetuity (but not govt backed as a lot of the offshore stuff is - that said I don't give much cred to UK backing right now, looks like an IMF bailout is possible or at least being discussed), an annuity for fixed years is easy to value, until death is harder as you have to figure the probability distribution of your lifespan, nevertheless nothing wrong in principle. For the moment though now is probably the worst time in history to buy one.
I realise on the above I'm covering issues outside straight annuities but some of the principles apply anyway.
