Forensic Fee Analysis - Offshore Savings Plans

How much is your
RL360 Quantum really
costing you?

Many expats discover too late that offshore savings plans such as RL360 Quantum, Zurich Vista, Hansard Vantage, and Generali Vision come with complex fees, long lock-ins, and harsh surrender penalties. Initial units, hidden adviser commission, and layered fund charges can drain your investment returns silently, leaving you with far less wealth than a simple low-cost ETF portfolio.

RL360 Quantum Zurich Vista Hansard Vantage Generali Vision
Projected Wealth Loss vs Low-Cost ETF
-

Monthly Premium

-

Your monthly contribution

Total Fees Consumed

-

Full plan term

Fees vs Contributions

-

% of capital destroyed

// The Initial Unit Trap

RL360 Quantum captures your first 18-24 months of contributions as initial units, charged a high annual fee for the full plan term. That fee is how the insurer recovers the adviser commission paid at inception. Read the methodology below.

// The Long-Term Wealth Gap

The same monthly contribution invested through Interactive Brokers into a low-cost UCITS ETF can materially outperform a contractual offshore plan because less of your return is lost to layered fees. See the assumptions below.

// 01. Your Offshore Product
Initial units: -
Accumulator: -
Interactive Brokers: -
Generali Vision uses a tiered admin-fee model (2.75% / 2.00% / 0.3% p.a. of cumulative premiums due) deducted from initial units, sized so initial units run out at maturity. This calculator approximates that schedule with a blended rate.
// 02. Plan Details

Set to 0 for a new plan. Enter years paid to see surrender value.

// 03. Fee Structure - RL360 Quantum

Auto-filled from provider Key Features Documents (RL360 QU004h, Zurich MSP11534, Hansard HO2469O, Generali GW VIS INT BRO DG 12/15). Edit any field to customise.

Plans signed before UAE’s BOD-49 carry the full original charge structure. Fee defaults above are taken from the provider’s own published KFD.

Industry estimate. Indemnified offshore commission is typically 3-5%. Set to 0 if you want to ignore commission.

Adviser commission at inception
-

Paid to your adviser on day one. Recovered through your initial unit fees over the full plan term.

// Wealth Trajectory: Offshore Plan vs Interactive Brokers
Offshore plan Interactive Brokers (VWRA, 0.3% TER) Contributions only
// What This Means In Plain English
Cumulative Fees - Full Plan Term
-

Paid in product charges, adviser commission recovery, and fund fees. None of it compounded for you.

Enter a monthly premium to see what this plan really costs in fees.

Offshore End Value
-
Interactive Brokers
-
Projected Loss
-
Adviser Paid Upfront
-

Exit penalty is the insurer's deduction from the fund value if you surrender. It is not the same as paid in minus surrender value.

!
Surrender Value - If You Exit Today
Based on RL360 Quantum official surrender schedule
Total Paid In
-
Estimated Fund Value
-
Surrender Value
-
Exit Penalty
-
Vs Paid In
-

Exit penalty is the surrender charge deducted from the fund value for leaving with - years remaining. It is not the gap between what you paid in and what you get back; that separate paid-in comparison is shown above.

Commission Disclosure

Your adviser received approximately - within weeks of your first premium — 4.2% of total planned premiums, paid by the insurer and recovered through your initial unit fees. Your adviser has already been paid in full and has no financial incentive to provide ongoing service.

Adviser total commission
-
Your effective day-1 return
-4.2%
Fee-only adviser (per year)
~GBP 3,000
// Wealth Gap at Milestone Years
Year Offshore Plan Interactive Brokers Gap Cumul. Fees Surrender Value Exit Penalty
ℹ️

This calculator models fee structures using the providers' own published Key Features Documents (RL360 Quantum QU004h 10/15, Zurich Vista CPDD MSP11534 05/19 and Effect of Charges MSP13579 02/19, Hansard Vantage Platinum II prospectus HO2469O 01/07/20, Generali Vision Details Guide GW VIS INT BRO (DG) 12/15) cross-referenced with AES International, Investments For Expats, and independent reviews (2024-2026). Surrender penalty schedules use the providers' own published tables. It does not constitute regulated financial advice. Actual fees may vary; always request a full Key Features Document and commission disclosure before signing. If you believe you were mis-sold a product, contact the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Methodology & Sources

Show me the receipts.

Every charge in this calculator comes from the product provider's own published Key Features Document, prospectus, or charge schedule. No third-party estimates. No "industry sources said". The actual PDFs the insurers themselves issue, with page references, so anyone who doubts the numbers can read them in five minutes.

// Why This Page Exists

Offshore savings plans are sold on relationship and complexity. The KFDs are 20-30 pages of dense actuarial language, the charge schedules are buried in appendices, and the adviser usually presents an illustration that shows a single optimistic outcome rather than the underlying mechanics. When you tell someone "your plan charges 6% per year on initial units for the entire term", a common response is "that can't be right - my adviser said it's a low-cost product."

So this page does one thing: it links you directly to the providers' own documents so you can verify every figure in the calculator yourself. If the calculator gives you a number that doesn't match the official KFD, that's a bug - please email me. If it gives you a number that does match the KFD, then it isn't an opinion: it's just what the contract says.

RL360 Quantum

Isle of Man · Closed to new business since 1 July 2019 · Document ref QU004h 10/15

Source: RL360 Quantum Key Features (Sample) - published on RL360's own adviser site at rl360.com. The figures below are taken verbatim from this document.

Charge Rate KFD reference
Initial unit charge0.50% per month (6.00% p.a.)QU004h p6 - for the full premium term
Contract charge0.125% per month (1.50% p.a.)QU004h p6 - on full fund value
Policy feeUSD 8 / GBP 5 / EUR 6 per monthQU004h p7 - indexed to Isle of Man RPI
Policy fee (paid-up)USD 24 per month (3× standard)QU004h p7 - tripled if premiums stop
Single premium allocation93% (7% loss on day one)QU004h p5

The surrender charge schedule used in the calculator is the official table from QU004h. At 25 years remaining the surrender charge is 87.5% of initial unit value; at 15 years 71.5%; at 5 years 34.0%. These are non-linear and table-based, not formulaic - the calculator interpolates linearly between rows.

Mirror fund fee in the calculator default (1.5%) is an estimate; RL360's KFD states the fund-manager AMC is variable and deducted within the unit price. Edit this field to match the specific funds in your plan.

Zurich International Vista

Isle of Man · Currently sold in Bahrain & Qatar · Document refs MSP11534 05/19 & MSP13579 02/19

Sources: Vista Customer Product Disclosure Document (MSP11534) and Vista Effect of Charges document (MSP13579). Both are hosted on Zurich Middle East's own adviser suite.

Charge Rate CPDD reference
Expense recoupment charge4.00% per year of initial unitsMSP11534 p7 - for full plan term
Yearly management charge1.00% per year of policy valueMSP11534 p7
Monthly policy feeUSD 8.25 per monthMSP11534 p7
Mirror Fund additional charge+0.75% per year (not 1.5%)MSP11534 p8 - this is the figure the previous version of the calculator had wrong
Paid-up charge+USD 10 per month if premiums stopMSP11534 p7
Single premium chargeUp to 7% of each single premiumMSP11534 p7
Zurich's own breakeven table

The Effect of Charges document MSP13579 publishes the annual investment growth required just to offset Vista's charges - before fund manager AMC and before inflation:

  • USD 300/month, 10 years: 2.59% p.a.
  • USD 500/month, 15 years: 1.81% p.a.
  • USD 1,250/month, 25 years: 1.26% p.a.

These are Zurich's own actuarial figures. Below those rates of return, Vista returns less than you paid in.

Vista's surrender penalty schedule is published in MSP11534 as a grid of "% of regular premiums paid during the initial contribution period" by both policy term and elapsed year. The calculator uses the most punitive curve (25-year term column) as the default surrender table, and interpolates over years remaining. At 25 years remaining 78.91% applies; at 15 years 58.50%; at 5 years 19.28%.

Hansard Vantage Platinum II

Isle of Man · Document refs HO2469O 01/07/20 & HO1929O 11/11/15

Sources: Vantage Platinum II Prospectus (HO2469O) and Vantage Effect of Charges (HO1929O). Both are original Hansard documents (document codes and footers intact) re-hosted by AES International. Hansard's own docs server at docs.hansard.com was returning errors at time of writing; if it comes back online the same files should be available there.

Charge Rate Prospectus reference
Annual management charge1.50% per year on all unit typesHO2469O p5 - reflected in unit price daily
Initial unit charge+5.50% per year on initial unitsHO2469O p5 - for full contract term
Service chargeGBP 5 per month (GBP 60 per year)HO2469O p6 - doubles to GBP 10/mo if paid-up
Fund administrationUp to 0.25% per year (not 1.5%)HO2469O p6 - plus dealing costs
Manual fund switchGBP 45 per switchHO2469O p6 - online switches free
Single premium allocation93% (7% loss on day one)HO2469O p4

Hansard's published surrender schedule is the simplest of the four: 82.63% at 25 years remaining, 75.34% at 20 years, 65.01% at 15 years, 50.34% at 10 years, 29.53% at 5 years. The calculator uses this table directly with linear interpolation between rows. The policy fee in the UI is shown in your selected currency, converted from the native GBP 5/month figure via the site's currency engine.

Generali / Utmost Vision

Guernsey · Closed to new business in most jurisdictions · Document ref GW VIS INT BRO (DG) 12/15

Source: Generali Vision Details Guide / Principal Brochure. Generali Worldwide's international life business was sold to Utmost Group in 2019; existing Vision policies are now serviced by Utmost Worldwide Ltd, but the original brochure terms continue to apply to in-force contracts.

Vision is the structurally different one of the four. Rather than a single flat initial-unit charge, its administration fee is tiered by both year and term:

Premium payment term Years 1-5 Years 6-10 Years 11+ Source
Sub-10-year terms2.75% p.a.2.00% p.a.-GW VIS INT BRO p14, Table 8
10+ year terms2.00% p.a.2.00% p.a.0.30% p.a.GW VIS INT BRO p14, Table 8

This admin fee is calculated against cumulative premiums due and deducted by cancelling initial units. The initial contribution period itself varies by term: 13.2 months for a 10-year plan, 15.54 months for 15-year, 18.78 months for 20-year, 22.92 months for 25-year, 27.96 months for 30-year (GW VIS INT BRO p8, Table 3).

Other Vision charges Rate Brochure reference
Investment admin charge1.50% per yearGW VIS INT BRO p15 - on accumulation units
Plan feeUSD 4.50 per monthGW VIS INT BRO p14
Internal fund advisory feesUp to 0.75% per yearGW VIS INT BRO p15
External fund AMC0.5%-3.0% per yearGW VIS INT BRO p15 - varies by fund
Single premium establishment1.50% per year for 5 yearsGW VIS INT BRO p15

Vision's surrender mechanic is uniquely simple: if you fully surrender before the end of the premium payment term, all initial units held are forfeited. The calculator models this directly - no surrender table needed. For a 25-year Vision plan, the initial contribution period is ~23 months, so a substantial chunk of your early contributions is sitting in initial units that you lose entirely on early surrender. This is structurally different to the other three products but produces a similar outcome: a heavy penalty for leaving before maturity.

How the simulation works

The calculator runs a month-by-month simulation over the full plan term. Each month, three things happen in this order: (1) the monthly premium is added to either the initial unit pool or the accumulator pool depending on whether you're still in the initial contribution period; (2) both pools grow at the assumed market return divided by 12; (3) charges are deducted - the initial unit pool pays the initial-unit fee plus admin plus mirror, the accumulator pool pays admin plus mirror only, and the monthly policy fee comes out of accumulator first then initial. A parallel Interactive Brokers track grows at the same market return minus a 0.30% all-in cost (VWRA TER of 0.22% plus IBKR's tiny commission and FX friction).

The reason the calculator separates the two pools is that this is how the providers actually compute charges. Initial units exist on the books for the entire plan term and carry the high initial-unit charge throughout; accumulator units only start being purchased after the initial contribution period and carry only the standard admin and fund charges. A simulation that blends them into one pool with a weighted-average charge will overstate growth in the early years and understate it later. Modelling them separately is the only honest way.

For the surrender value calculation, the calculator looks up the official surrender percentage from the published table for that product and applies it to the initial unit balance only - accumulator units are not subject to surrender charges on these products. For Generali Vision, the rule is different: 100% of initial units are forfeited on early surrender, so the engine takes that path directly.

The 0.30% Interactive Brokers comparison rate is conservative. VWRA's actual published TER is 0.22% per year; IBKR's commission on a typical monthly VWRA purchase of $1,000 is roughly $1.50 (so ~0.15% but only on contributions, not on the running fund); FX conversion through IBKR's IDEALPRO market is 0.002% spread plus $2 per conversion. A real-world all-in cost is closer to 0.25% for most users. The calculator uses 0.30% to be deliberately conservative in favour of the offshore plan - the wealth gap is genuinely larger than what the calculator shows.

A note on adviser commission

None of the four provider KFDs discloses adviser commission rates directly. That's a structural feature of indemnified commission contracts: the insurer pays the adviser, the adviser owes the insurer that money back if the policy lapses early, and the customer indirectly funds the whole arrangement through the initial unit charge. Because commission isn't disclosed in the KFD, the 4.2% default in the calculator is an industry estimate based on what multiple independent expat advisers and forensic reviewers have reported.

Cross-referenced sources for the 4.2% figure include Investments For Expats' commission disclosure analysis (which puts indemnified commission on Quantum/Vista/Vantage between 3% and 5% of total planned premiums), AES International's Vista review, and Mike Coady's Vista review. The calculator's commission slider lets you set this anywhere from 0% to 8%, so if your adviser disclosed a different figure (or if you want to model "what if there was no commission at all"), you can.

To verify what your adviser was actually paid, you can request a written commission disclosure from the insurance company directly - this is a customer right under most jurisdictions' insurance regulations, regardless of where the policy was sold. Quote your policy number and ask for the total commission paid to the introducing adviser at inception and any ongoing commission. Some advisers also receive trail commission of 0.25%-0.5% per year of fund value, though this is much less common on indemnified plans.

Full source list

Every figure in the calculator and on this page is traceable to one of the documents below. Primary sources (the providers' own published documentation) carry the most weight. Secondary sources (independent reviews) are cited only for context, commission estimates, and to corroborate the primary documents.

Primary - Provider Documentation
Secondary - Independent Reviews & Context
// Verification challenge

If you have a copy of your own plan's official illustration or Key Features Document and the numbers in the calculator don't match it within a reasonable tolerance, please get in touch. The calculator is built to reproduce what the providers publish, not to overstate the case against offshore plans. If a default is wrong I want to fix it.

Equally, if any of the source links above breaks (insurers do occasionally re-issue or relocate their PDFs), please flag it. The original document references - QU004h, MSP11534, MSP13579, HO2469O, HO1929O, GW VIS INT BRO (DG) 12/15 - are stable enough to find the replacement.

Please use this form if you believe any figures are incorrect or would like clarification. Email is optional — only needed if you’d like a reply. I don’t share or sell any details you provide.

Last verified against provider documents: November 2025. None of this constitutes regulated financial advice; it is research and calculation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the initial unit trap in RL360, Zurich Vista, and similar offshore savings plans?

▼
The first 18–24 months of your contributions become “initial units” charged at 4–6% per year for the entire plan term — not just the initial period. This is how the insurance company recovers the commission paid to your adviser upfront. At RL360’s 6% annual rate, layered on top of the 1.5% contract charge and underlying fund costs, your initial unit money barely grows at all over 25 years even with a 7% market return. The calculator models this dual-pool structure accurately, using the providers’ own published Key Features Documents as the source for every charge figure.

Does UAE BOD-49 mean new offshore savings plans are now cheap?

▼
No. UAE Central Bank Regulation BOD-49 (effective October 2020) capped adviser commissions and shortened minimum investment periods for plans sold on the UAE mainland. It did not cap the underlying product charges or fund TERs. Combined charges on post-BOD-49 plans typically remain 1.5–3% p.a. — still materially higher than a self-directed UCITS ETF portfolio at 0.07–0.30% p.a. all-in. BOD-49 also does not apply to plans sold by advisers licensed in DIFC or ADGM free zones.

Should I stay in my offshore plan or surrender it?

▼
This is a mathematical question, not an emotional one. The surrender penalty is a sunk cost — you cannot recover it by staying. The relevant comparison is: what will my money be worth at the original maturity date if I (a) keep paying into this plan versus (b) accept the surrender value today and reinvest it in a low-cost ETF account Use the calculator to model both paths for your specific situation. In most cases with more than 10 years remaining, option (b) produces a higher final value despite the exit penalty.

Does BOD-49 apply to advisers operating from DIFC or ADGM?

▼
No. DIFC and ADGM are financial free zones regulated by their own bodies (DFSA and FSRA respectively). UAE Central Bank regulations, including BOD-49, do not apply to firms licensed in DIFC or ADGM. Plans sold by advisers in these zones are subject to DFSA or FSRA rules, which can have different — and sometimes less restrictive — commission structures. If your plan was sold through a DIFC or ADGM adviser, the full original fee structure from the provider’s KFD still applies regardless of when the plan was sold.