Savings
2026. Six years later. The loan is done. The vehicle is yours.
In 2020 a lot of people in Trinidad and Tobago did what made sense at the time. They financed a vehicle. A Nissan Frontier, a Hilux, a Tuscon. Something solid, something practical. The payment was around $3,000 TTD per month. They set up the standing order and they made it work.
The important questions most people in Trinidad fail to ask at that exact moment: what happens to the $3,000 TTD now?
The most common answer in Trinidad is another vehicle. New model. New loan. Same $3,000 TTD leaving the account every month. The budget had the room so the room gets filled.
Six years later that second vehicle is paid off and the same thing happens again. The money gets redirected into a third loan. The cycle continues and at no point does that $3,000 TTD ever build anything permanent.
A vehicle depreciates from the day you drive it off the showroom floor. A 2020 Nissan Frontier that cost $280,000 TTD to finance is worth considerably less today. You spent six years making payments on something that went down in value while you owned it. Transport is a necessity in T&T. But the payment you made on that vehicle built nothing for your future.
I ran the numbers with a real product. The Sagicor Saver Series Endowment to Age 65. This is an endowment insurance plan with guaranteed cash values. You commit $3,092 TTD per month. The policy runs to age 65 and pays a guaranteed lump sum at maturity. Here is what that looks like for a 31-year-old male non-smoker starting today.
Not projected. Guaranteed.
Sagicor Saver Series Endowment to Age 65
Male, 31, Non-Smoker. Monthly premium: $3,092.26 TTD. Sum Assured: $3,000,000 TTD.
For illustration purposes only. Does not constitute an offer or contract of insurance.
Age 36, Year 5:Guaranteed Cash Surrender Value $36,000 TTD
Age 41, Year 10:Guaranteed Cash Surrender Value $276,000 TTD
Age 46, Year 15:Guaranteed Cash Surrender Value $588,000 TTD
Age 51, Year 20:Guaranteed Cash Surrender Value $1,002,000 TTD
Age 60, Year 29:Guaranteed Cash Surrender Value $2,100,000 TTD
Age 65, Year 34:Policy matures. Guaranteed payout: $3,000,000 TTD
Total premiums paid over 34 years: $1,261,642.08 TTD
Death benefit throughout the entire term: $3,000,000 TTD
If the insured dies at any point before age 65, the family receives $3,000,000 TTD. The policy pays at maturity or on earlier death. Either way the money is paid.
An endowment is a life insurance policy with a built-in savings component. You pay a fixed premium for a defined term. At the end of the term the policy pays out the sum assured as a guaranteed lump sum. If you die during the term your family receives the same amount immediately.
The Sagicor Saver Series Endowment to Age 65 has guaranteed cash values, meaning the returns in the table above are locked in regardless of economic conditions or market performance. This is not an investment-linked product where returns fluctuate. What the table shows is what you receive.
From year five onward a guaranteed cash surrender value builds each year. By year ten it is $276,000 TTD. By year twenty it crosses $1,000,000 TTD. At age 65 it equals the full sum assured of $3,000,000 TTD.
Six years of never missing a $3,000 TTD car payment is not a small thing. That is financial discipline. That is the ability to commit to a fixed monthly obligation and honour it consistently regardless of what else is happening in life.
The question is not whether you can afford the endowment. You already proved you can manage the payment. The question is whether you direct that discipline toward something that depreciates or something that accumulates.
A new vehicle financed in 2026 will be paid off in 2032. By then the endowment taken out in 2026 will have a guaranteed cash surrender value of $78,000 TTD and a $3,000,000 TTD death benefit in place from day one. The vehicle financed in 2026 will be worth a fraction of what was paid for it.
The vehicle loan payoff is one trigger point. There are others.
Kezia is 34. She is a nurse at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex. She just cleared the last payment on her Hilux in March. For six years $3,200 TTD left her account every month without fail. She is looking at that standing order now wondering what to do with it. If Kezia redirects that payment into a Sagicor Saver Series Endowment at 34, by the time she reaches 65 she has a guaranteed $2,500,000 TTD waiting. Her pension from the public service gives her a foundation. The endowment closes the gap above it.
Anyone who has just cleared a loan and has a monthly payment freed up. Anyone in their late twenties and thirties who has no retirement plan and knows it. Anyone who has ever paid a loan without missing a payment.
The discipline is the foundation. The endowment is where it goes next.
If you want to see what this calculation looks like for your specific age and situation, click here to book a free consultation at daronjacobsfinancial.com.
The Nissan Frontier got you where you needed to go. It served its purpose and you honoured the commitment.
The Frontier depreciates. The endowment accumulates. One of those choices builds your retirement. The other one does not.
If you want to run the numbers for your age, your current position, and what an endowment structured around your situation looks like, book a free consultation and let us work through it.
Click Here Book your free consultation today.
Daron Jacobs, RFC, FSCP
Senior Financial Advisor | Daron Jacobs Financial Limited
📞 1-868-759-8359
daronjacobsfinancial.com
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