Investors Trust Access Portfolio Review
Investors Trust Access Portfolio Review
Investors Trust stands as the worldwide emblem representing the ITA Group of firms.
Originating in 2002 as an international insurance conglomerate, Investors Trust has broadened its scope to encompass clientele across over 100 markets globally, operating through numerous office hubs to cater to its diverse international audience.
Distinguished for its focus on medium to long-term unit-linked investment offerings, Investors Trust delivers an extensive array of solutions tailored explicitly for international investors.
With operational presence in the Cayman Islands, Malaysia, and Puerto Rico, Investors Trust maintains service points in strategic locations including Dubai, Hong Kong, Uruguay, and a central corporate support office in the United States.
Investors Trust Access Portfolio is a range of investment solutions offered by Investors Trust Assurance SPC, a leading international insurance company. The Access Portfolio aims to provide investors with flexible and diversified investment options to help them achieve their financial goals
This article will review the product and explain why some investors will get good returns compared to others, making the advisor you pick essential to your investing success.
The article will also briefly review the fixed income and platinum portfolios as well – two other lump sum options available on Investors Trust.
If you want to invest as an expat or high-net-worth individual, you can email me (nelson@innovestglobalwealth.com) or Reach me via WhatsApp at +1 803 857 2161
Advisors and introducers who want to distribute Investors Trust globally can also reach out to me.
Where is Investors Trust Access Portfolio sold?
Worldwide, but often in expat-focused areas such as Dubai, Africa, Shanghai, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brussels, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Qatar and various other locations.
For locals, Latin America, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea are probably the biggest markets.
What are the costs of Investors Trust Access Portfolio?
It depends which option is chosen. The Access Portfolio Plus only costs 1% per year for admin charges, whereas the Access 800 Series is charged at 1.2% per year and policy fee of 180 USD per quarter.
What are the biggest misconceptions about Investors Trust?
The three biggest ones are that they are only in the Cayman Islands, are a relatively small company and don’t have great investor protections.
To the contrary they are an A-rated institution which is now in Puerto Rico and Malaysia.
They also don’t use offshore banks, and instead only use A-rated onshore banks like HSBC (US) and Standard Chartered (UK) to hold the funds, even though they are domiciled offshore as an organisation.
Together with the segregated account system, these protections are top notch. For that reason, it is perhaps unsurprising that they have been one of the fastest growing companies in their niche in recent years, and are thus no longer a small company.
Many older views fail to take account of this.
Investors Trust Access Portfolio Investments
minimum account for Investors Trust Access Portfolio
For the Access Portfolio, $75,000USD, 75,000 Euros and 50,000GBP are the minimum account sizes.
The minimum additional investments are 5,000GBP, 7,500USD and 7,500 Euros respectively, for top ups.
What about if you don’t have $75,000 or currency equivalent?
Investors Trust do have a smaller lump sum product called the Platinum.
It starts from $10,000/10,000GBP/10,000 Euros. This product has less investment choices than the access portfolio, but does have some of the better fund options, such as the S&P500 index fund.
In general, the fees associated with the Platinum can be higher than the Access portfolio, but that depends on which option you select, as there are three options associated with the Platinum portfolios.
What is the duration of Investors Trust Access Portfolio investment?
Different periods can be chosen. 5 years, 8 years and open-ended charging structures can be picked on day one.
There are no early surrender charges if the open charging structure is put in place. In comparison, early surrender charges exist if you wish to leave the investment early on the 5 year and 8 year options.
The three different products are called the Access 5000 series, the Access Portfolio 8000 Series and the Access Portfolio Plus.
Full list of Investors Trust Access Portfolio investment managers available
On the Access Portfolio, there are too many options to list here, but the most popular ones include:
- Ishares
- Blackrock
- Morgan Stanley
- Pimco
- Janus Henderson
- Franklin Templeton
- MFS
- Investec
- Fidelity
- AllianceBernstein
- Vanguard
Vanguard isn’t available on the Platinum portfolio but it is available on the Access Portfolio.
Investors have access to many International Government Bonds, Corporate Bonds, and Sharia Bonds.
Investors have access to all Stocks on the NASDAQ, NYSE and the European and Asian Stock Markets
Investors have access to funds managed by the world’s largest asset management firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Alliance Bernstein and many more.
Are there any other lump sum options?
For people looking for pure income, Investors Trust have a fixed income portfolio.
This portfolio gives you the option to invest for 3, 5 and 15 years. The 3 and 5 year rates are fixed, with a minimum contribution of $10,000.
The rates on offer are very low though – 1.75% for 3 years and rising to up to 3.6% for 10 year plans, so this should only be considered as a slightly better option than keeping your money in the bank.
The positive about this plan is that the investments are backed up by Investors Trust’s assets and only cost $7 a month.
That means Investors Trust invests the money (it is the only product they offer where they invest the money rather than the advisor) and hope to make more money than they are giving the client in return.
If they don’t achieve that, they need to repay the client from their own assets.
What have been some of the best performing funds on this Investors Trust Access Portfolio?
That depends on which timeframes you look at. In recent years, US markets have done best, with emerging and energy-linked ETFs, facing downward pressure, with a lower oil price.
Sometimes today’s winners are tomorrow’s losers, and vice versa, though.
A great example of this is if you compare US and international stocks.
Historically, each has a period of over performance, according to work from Fidelity:
So, it always pays to have a well-diversified portfolio.
What are the pros and cons of the Investors Trust Access Portfolio?
The main pros
- Investors Trust offers an excellent online system, with ease of topping up, withdrawal and other admin done efficiently. The costs are also reasonable, depending on the charging structure chosen.
- Passive investments like ETF index trackers can also be picked, thereby reducing cost.
- In general, they have excellent and varied fund choices. Perhaps less than 1-2 other platforms, but more than some other options in the market
- There is a borrowing facility although this is expensive.
- Regardless of the option you pick, it is quite flexible, in terms of withdrawals. Within 5 years, it is usually 100% flexible.
- Multi jurisdictions is a key advantage of the Investors Trust system. You have the option between Malaysia, Puerto Rico or Cayman.
- Even though you need to pay in USD, Pounds or Euros, countless currency options are available on Access Portfolio once the money is on there. This includes the Turkish Lira, South African Rand, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Singaporean Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar and Mexican Peso.
- There are plans to expand the range of investment funds available on access.
- Importantly, each of the three locations offers checks and balances. So your assets are always separate to the company’s assets. This is very different to investing with a bank, where the institution uses your money to lend to depositors. This lowers risk a lot.
- Good banking system with HSBC used for the USD bank accounts.
- You can pay online, even for lump sums, or via bank transfer. Of course, with bigger lump sums, it isn’t very practical to invest $200,000 by card, unless you pay $10,000 per time. For smaller amounts, this feature is excellent, as it lowers the cost in most cases.
- It is possible to do your own trades as well as have an advisor help you. Even though this isn’t a do it yourself (DIY) platform, and therefore need to be introduced by an advisor, you do get a client login once your account has been approved. This means that you can make your own trades. Some clients, as an example, want to make some of their own trades and have an advisor manage half of the portfolio. It is much easier to do this on this investment solution compared to most others.
- It is usually a tax efficient option. Investors Trust don’t give out tax advice, and indeed tax rules can always change quickly. What is true though is that they are based in tax efficient locations. Therefore, especially for expats that are living in low or 0% capital gains environments, this is a good option. In comparison, if you use a platform located in a high-tax country which decides to apply capital gains even to non-residents, you could get hit by taxes.
- Compared to some of the typical investments in the expat market like those discussed below, this is a very good option
The main cons
- The fact numerous fund options can be chosen is great, but that does mean that some clients are in expensive funds, whereas cheaper options exist on the same platform. Two investors who have different funds will get very different results, even on the same platform.
- The minimums are higher than some other options
- American expats can’t be accepted for this platform and there are additional restrictions, such as Hong Kong residents, and those in places under US sanctions, such as Iran. However, this is still much more flexible than some providers, that have a huge list of countries they can’t accept for.
- Only USD, Euros and Pounds are available. This is a small issue though, in this day and age, with countless ultra cheap options available for Australian, Japanese and other investors.
- Over time, there is more restrictions on investment funds compared to the past. Whilst this can be a good thing (to limit the investors risk), in certain cases, it can affect the investor. In general, however, a good advisor has more than enough investment choices for any investor.
Are the majority of clients happy?
I have met countless happy clients who are in this lump sum option.
I have also met numerous people that have lost contact with their advisor, or been put into unsuitable investment options within the platform.
What can you do if you have an Investors Trust access portfolio plan which isn’t performing well?
If you have an Investors Trust Access Portfolio and you aren’t satisfied with the returns, there could be two reasons for this.
Either markets aren’t performing well, which can’t be helped in the short-term. In comparison, the second reason is that bad funds have been picked.
In which case, it should be much easier to make the account work more efficiently.
Investors Trust Access Portfolio Review: Final Thoughts In general, Investors Trust are an excellent option in the expat market, but only if it is used in the right way.
Investor A, with advisory firm A, can do much better than investor B, with advisory company B, on the same platform.
So in many ways the advisor you pick is more important than the platform itself.
Overall, the Access Portfolio is a superior product to the fixed income and platinum options, but those options have their place, especially for cautious investors.
If you have an Investors Trust Access Portfolio, or have been proposed one and want a second opinion, you can email me on (nelson@innovestglobalwealth.com) or Reach me via WhatsApp at +1 803 857 2161. If you’re based in Africa, contact us via +256 773 488 765
I can also offer discounts on the stated online price, and probably discounts on what your broker is offering you.
Do not be pained by financial indecision, if you need a review of your current stock portfolio, or you're considering investing in the US stock markets, I'm here to help.
Please reach out via email. nelson@innovestglobalwealth.com
