How to choose best Term Plan ?

By
Hemant Beniwal
431

We keep getting lot of questions on how to choose the best term insurance plan or which is the best term plan or which is the cheapest one. So let’s go deep to understand more about it. To know the basics you can read what is term Plan? Let’s begin with understanding the importance of it & later we will see 3 criteria to choose best term plan.

We all know death & taxes are unavoidable – we plan for taxes to avoid trouble but do we plan for other one. NO… most of the Indians don’t. People look so sure that nothing will happen to them. That makes their families life miserable in case of sudden demise of the bread winner.

How to choose best Term Plan ?
LIC in Nanital – Insurance means Safety.

Let me share a real example one of my sister’s friend expired due to food poisoning – he was under 30 years of age. He never thought, what will happen if he will not be there?? He left this question unanswered for her wife & 2 year old daughter. No one can fulfill the emotional vacuum but what about finances? If he would have given some importance to this family would have been financially secured. In some cases death occurs at young age when the life deceased has loans to pay. See what happened in Japan. Do you think the banks will not ask for the home loans or personal loans repayments from the families of the deceased?

How to choose best Term Plan ? Click to Tweet

So don’t delay this & take a term plan today. But which one is still not answered. Simple answer is going for the policy which is having least premium. NO this will be a big mistake. Read a case…

Got a comment/question on term insurance plan from Sumeet Gupta (We must appreciate him the way he has researched for his policy):

“I had asked for the quotes for Term Insurance from various Co’s about the sample insurance of Rs. 50 lac for 31 yrs. old. The various quotes have made me more confused than ever.

The rates vary from Rs. 5, 800 to Rs. 15, 450.

Could you understand what the difference between the followings is?

Sample Quotes of Term Plans received were:

  • Age – 31 Yrs
  • Policy Term – 25 Yrs
  • Sum Assured: Rs. 50, 00, 000
Company Name Plan Annual Premium
Met Life India Insurance Met Protect Rs. 5,800
Aegon Religare Life Insurance iTerm Plan Rs. 5,900
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance iProtect Rs. 5,900
Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance E-Term / E – Preferred Term Rs. 6,370
Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Preferred Term Plan Rs. 7,638
Bharti AXA Life Insurance Elite Secure Rs. 9,850
Future Generali Life Insurance Smart Life Rs. 10,050
HDFC Standard Life Insurance Term Assurance Plan Rs. 11,871
Aviva Life Insurance Life Shield Plus Rs. 12,243
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance New Risk Care Rs. 13,540
Tata – AIG Life Insurance Life Raksha Rs. 13,900
Birla Sunlife Insurance Term Plan Rs. 15,332
LIC of India Amulya Jeevan Rs. 15,450

His Questions on term plan :

Which of the above insurer’ I may approach for insurance and could anyone guide me on the matter as to how:

  • Q1 The premium rates of basic ‘Life Insurance’ policy differ with such a wide margin?
  • One of the reason is most of the insurers don’t want to compete in this product including LIC.
  • Q2 Is there any basic difference in coverage amongst the insurers or is there any restriction of coverage?
  • Not much difference but few of the insurers allow people only under some particular age or keep risk of group less by proper checks.
  • Q3 Which is the best term Plan in your opinion?
  • For this read remaining part of this article.

How to choose best term plan?

As I always say there is no best financial product be it mutual fund or insurance. If they are best today there is no guarantee that they will be best when we will need those most. So as a client you have to stick to some basic principals while choosing the products. So let’s check this for term plans.

Important factors in choosing term insurance plan

1 Claim settlement Ratio: The most important criteria of selecting any insurance policy including term plan is claim settlement ratio. Why we are buying life insurance? If I am not there my family will get the sum assured & have financial security. But what will happen if our claim gets denied – whole purpose of taking term plan will be defeated. So it’s better to check it rather than sorry. You can check claim settlement ratio here & also latest one here(December 2010 Quarter at onemint).

How can you reduce chances of claim rejection?

  1. Don’t allow agent to play checkers. If you are buying term plan there is 90% chances that you called the agent. He is in very hurry to fill the form & pocket his commission.
  2. Don’t hide anything – if you smoke or drink mention it – if you have any other medical ailment disclose it.(even if you think it is very small)
  3. Mention which other life insurance policies that you hold – from any insurance company including ulip & endowment.

If you follow these points there is a good chance that your claim will not be declined.

2 Reputation of the company – there is no definition or cannot be easily explained as it depends on 2 factors working style/financial health of the company & your past experience. So it is very subjective & changes with the time but still will be considered to increase your confidence. Or take it other way round there are 10-15 good insurance companies & you are not having confidence on 2 of them you can eliminate them from total choices.

3 Low Premium – People think this is the most important criteria but actually it is least important. This criterion should be explored only when you have shortlisted polices on above 2 points.

Pattu shared this article “Can Private Insurance Firms be Trusted” by Livemint

So this way you can reach the term plan that you should buy.

In Financial Planning there are many strategies that can be followed to make sure that you are adequately insured & your claims will not be denied but there is a very simple strategy that I think everyone should follow.

Divide your Term Plan into 2 parts:

There are lots of benefits of this strategy.

1 In case if in future you realize that your sum assured is more you can discontinue one of the policies. This can happen due to either demotion or loss in job OR a windfall profit that you get which was not anticipated.

2 In case one of the insurance claims got denied or delayed still your family has a chance that they will not lose everything.

3 If you have rightly filled details in the forms & one of your claims got denied – your family or your advisor can reach insurance ombudsman that claim got passed from X co but Y co has denied it. Your family has a great chance that even this claim will be passed if followed properly.

Now, you know how and which term plan to choose. Reach your financial advisor & ask him to calculate your insurance requirement. Go for it and believe me your approach to life will change.

Please share your views – may be helpful for other readers.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

431 COMMENTS

      • Sir,
        I am a customer of AVIVA FREEDOM LIFE ADVANTAGE,my yearly premium Rs.140000,policy terms 15 years.This amount is huge for me
        Please give me suggestion what will i do in this situation , i have already deposited 280000.
        Thanking you
        Regards
        Anjan Biswas

        • Hi Anjan,
          I have not clue about this policy – I will suggest to check it reviews on google.

  2. Nice post. Thanks for the links to onemint. I have deep distrust of private insurers.
    The data posted here
    Livemint Link – added it in post
    and other sources only confirm my belief.

    My trust in LIC is not based on its enterprise or efficiency or its angelic nature. Its due to the lack of all this. It is a old sarkari office where things get done slowly but get done all right.

    I think the advice of two term policies works best for the unmarried young professional.
    For someone who take it a bit late after a steady job, marriage and kids I think one policy with honest disclosure is good enough. It may actually turn out more expensive to take two.

    Taking two and hoping one will pay is fine. Since all claim forms have details of other policies, there is nothing illegal about one claims dept. contacting the other. If taking term insurance is a duty of a family person. Minimizing the chances of making the nominee run to the ombudsmen is also his/her duty.

    • Hi Pattu,

      Livemint link is worth reading. (added in post)

      Let’s other readers share their views on “LIC vs Private Insurers” – I will share my views at later stage.

      Regarding splitting sum assured in 2 policies. I Discussed this thing with Ex Chief Risk Officer of one of the insurance cos – he shared the same views & it confirms it is the right strategy.

      Insurance is just about probability – let’s take 2 examples:
      1. Out of my school classmates(100) – only 1-2 have chance to expire before age of 50 but still I bought term plan.(How can I say I am not the chosen one)
      2. Out of total claims that arrived(100) – only 1-2 have a chance to get rejected.(even when every information is correct) Can I say in case of some mishap my claims will not be declined.

      So by taking 2 policies we are reducing risk of rejection & some foot-work by nominee is worth doing. (And we are talking about worst case scenario)

      • Hi Hemant,
        I also asked the same questions in Prakash Praharaj’s post in the FP guild. As you know he is also ex risk officer (hope we are not talking about the same person!). Although it was difficult to make him say so (I tried!) his comments implied that rejection is less when one is honest upfront. But I fully agree with your concept of probability.

        ps. Sometimes when I post comments the page refuses to load and my comments are lost. Page says server not found. I understand this is
        This happened at least 3/4 time earlier incl yesterday. Wonder why.

  3. Thanks Hemant.

    “Mention which other life insurance policies that you hold – from any insurance company including ulip & endowment.”

    Why is this important? Or how does it matter if one has other policies?

    Regards

      • Dear Sir,

        I want to buy term plan and want to take 2 term plans from a different companies as suggested.

        But as you said, “You can’t buy unlimited insurance”. I heard from the one of the advisor that, his customers have bought terms plans from differnt companies but only one company will settle the claim and I have recently read in the new paper that, some court passed judgement in favor of the insuracne companies rather insured relative, where insured took term plan from different companies.

        I am really in dilema as I have asked Aviva by sending email but got call but no assurance for my query. I have asked to myinsuracneclub they have also suggested to take two terms plan, but given any satisfactory answer for chances of passing claims from the two companies.

        I look forward to your answer.

        Regards,
        Jinal

        • Hi Jinal,
          Definitely you can’t purchase unlimited insurance but let’s assume that your limit is Rs 1 Cr – you can buy it from 1 company or may be from 5, that’s purely your decision. Can you share the source “I have recently read in the new paper that, some court passed judgement in favor of the insuracne companies rather insured relative, where insured took term plan from different companies.”
          It may be possible as you agent must be having license of only one insurance company, he is trying to sell you that.

  4. Hello Hemant,
    I have taken the iTerm plan from Aegon Religare, incidentally whose premium is very less. My question is, how can any insurance company reject any claim if all the disclosures have been made correctly?For example, i do not drink or smoke and i do not have any disease like diabetes or BP. I believe the reason for higher number of rejections, not only with AR, but with any other insurance company has to be because of incorrect information provided. As for LIC, well, they are making profit because of their goodwill in the market, be it term insurance or be it products like Samriddhi Plus.

    • Hi Sumeet,

      This article was not possible without your data.

      Regarding your query: If the only reason of claim rejection is filling form or disclosure – claim settlement ratios of insurance cos would have been almost similar.

      What’s your view??

  5. Dear Hemant,

    I have a REVEALING point to make..as the saying goes, STATASTICS are what you make them out to be…If LIC has rejection ratio of only 4%, to most people it seems good..but 4% of 1 crore+ policies is a mind-bogling number where as a private company with 12% rejection ratio of a few lakhs policies will be quite less..Anyone can take his own pick, according to his liking – PVT or PUBLIC..

    According to me, if all the information is disclosed correctly in the proposal form, claim arised due to genuine reason, and all the relevent documents required by the insurance company are provided by the policyholder’s nominee, then i believe there is no power in the world that can reject the claim..

    • Hi Dhawal,

      I would like to repeat “If the only reason of claim rejection is filling form or disclosure – claim settlement ratios of insurance cos would have been almost similar.” Or would have been better for private insurance cos – as I feel they have better agents & good training systems.

  6. Dear Dhawal,

    Suppose LIC has 1 crore policies and private player, ABC ltd has 1 lakh polcieis.
    Assume all rejected policies are because of problematic applications. This is what you and other are saying (if you are honest then no chance of rejection. So this is what that means).
    On an average both LIC and private players would receive the same number of problematic applications. There is no reason to claim otherwise. One could start arguments like LIC agents are bad people private agents are better etc. This is not the company’s fault. This is the customers fault.

    Now if 12 % of 1 lakh polices rejected = 12000 policies.

    Now 4% of 1 crore rejected = 400000 polices. Yes huge number but
    since now of problematic applications are same for all firms this means only 4 policies per lakh policies!!

    Numbers dont lie. Interpretations may vary. But numbers are numbers. The assumptions made above are pretty reasonable.

    Don’t want to start a fight with you again. My mind is made up about policies of private players.

    • Hi Pattu,

      Averages(numbers) some time creates illusions – average age of my readers is 28 but their can be a reader of 98 & also 16.
      But still let me add few more averages 😉
      Average claim per policy:
      LIC Rs 73775
      Private Insurers Rs 172000
      Kotak Rs 298382

      We can’t directly compare LIC with Private Cos due to 2 reasons:
      1. The kind of small sum insured policies that LIC sells
      2. Establishment date of Cos – older policies will always have a better death claim settlement ratio.

      • Dear Hemant,

        The example I gave above implies what your wrote:
        I would like to repeat “If the only reason of claim rejection is filling form or disclosure – claim settlement ratios of insurance cos would have been almost similar.” Or would have been better for private insurance cos – as I feel they have better agents & good training systems.
        —————————————————————-
        After 3 years each death claim is treated as normal. So the calim settlement of companies who are 10 years old is also quite bad which is disturbing
        ————————————————————-
        Agree your point about averages.However are you talking about average claim per policy or average death claim per policy? If you are referring to the former then I would think the nos are not relevant.

        If you are talking about average death claims then

        1. Given the Indian mindset I think almost every company has more of endowment/ulip kind of policies than term policies which is likely to have high sum assured.

        2. I dont know why privates have higher average (death?) claim per policy. Does it mean they have more term policies or have high sum assured policies than LIC. If yes is that not reason to avoid them as chanes of denial increases with sum assured. Again if true if LIC handles small sum assured well what would they do with high sum assured
        ——————————————————————–
        An insurance analyst can say; ‘We can’t directly compare LIC with Private Cos’
        However the lay man must (be able to) make the comparison before buying policies.
        ———————————————————————-

        • Hi Pattu,

          I said we can’t compare LIC with Private bcoz quality data is not available to compare them.

      • thanx hemant for sharing this information..was not aware of these figures..

        And to Mr pattu, there is no question of fight here or anywhere sir..Its just a case of perception..Yours is different from mine and thats it..

        • @ Dhawal & other readers

          one more thing – may be useful for everyone “Section 45 of Insurance Act, 1938 states: In accordance with Section 45 of Insurance Act, 1938, no policy of life insurance shall, after the expiry of two years from the date on which it was effected, be called in question by an insurer on the ground that a statement made in the proposal of insurance or any report of a medical officer, or a referee, or a friend of the insured, or in any other document leading to the issue of the policy, was inaccurate or false, unless the insurer shows that such statements was on material factor or suppressed facts which it was material to disclose and that it was fraudulently made by the policyholder and that the policyholder knew at the time of making that the statement was false or that it suppressed facts which it was material to disclose.”

          • Dear Hemant,
            I have repeatedly made this point in Manish’s blog. Not many private insurers display this info on their website!

            You are first CFP/blogger to say this
            I would like to repeat “If the only reason of claim rejection is filling form or disclosure – claim settlement ratios of insurance cos would have been almost similar.” Or would have been better for private insurance cos – as I feel they have better agents & good training systems.

            this is indeed heartening. To me this only proves that many privates settle claims only after exhausting all legal and illegal reasons to reject claims!

  8. Hello Hemant & All Members

    I am 25 years old and intrested to buy a Term Plan for me of Rs 30 lakhs. I seperate this Sum Assured in two parts 5 lakhs from LIC & 25 lakhs from any privite company.
    First One-I find a quote of Rs 25lakhs for 30 years age 25yrs from Kotak “Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Preferred Term Plan ” Of Rs 3,778 Per Annum.
    So I want to know that_
    Is it Advisible to buy Term Plan From this company?
    Is it a good in claim settlement Ratio?
    Please tell me as i am very much intrested to buy a term plan but cannot take decission for a couple of months.
    Second is- LIC Anmol Jeevan-I Plan-164 Of Rs 5Lakhs for a premium of Rs 1431 PA for 25 years which will be helpful at the time of claim if private compinies denyied to pay.

    Thanks
    Hare Krishna

    • Hi Mukesh,

      Do you have dependents – as you are just 25. If you are not married & your parents also don’t depend on you – you don’t need to buy term plan. You can take comprehensive accidental policy.

      My suggestion is dividing policy in equal parts.

      Kotak’s claim settlement ratio is 87% which is better than average of private life insurance companies. (Oh Average 🙂 )

  9. Nice post. Have started coming to your blog only recently.

    @Pattu. Numbers don’t lie! 4 rejections per 1 lakh for LIC. 12000 rejections per 1 lakh for a private witha typical 12% rejection ratio. Thank you for helping me decide!

    @Rohan,
    This is the problem of writing a popular blog. People come and ask I want to this and that want suggestion. What do you you think about A B or C product? etc.

    Financial self literacy is very important. When you want someones advise it requires compensation. Why do think they call them selves fee based financial planners. If you want advice pay for it. Sorry but this is typical Indian attitude. This is why we don’t have more CFPs. They are worried if they will ever make a living only from FP.

    Look at Manishs blog and the kind of weird requests he gets!!!

    • Hey Herge,

      You are patting or kicking my back. Still confused hmmm 🙁

      But I liked this “Financial self literacy is very important.” Even if you have to hire someone you should know what to ask & what to expect.

  10. Dear Hemant ji,

    m big fan (much more bigger than a helicopter one) of ur articules. TFL is useful for me in two ways:- 1. as the name states… i’m getting more financially literate. getting help for deciding more regarding how to manage insurance and other financial matters. although me and my family have been dumped with lots of worthless policies since years and m not able to find the way out …. so the matter of old policies dropped.
    2. this one is quite funny but a fact …. sooooooooooo many many insurance agents (many of them are relatives and want OBLIGATORY policy to complete yearly targets) offering insurance policies or so called fixed return option attached with insurance policy. now i can use the financial literate knowledge to atleast confuse them (although some of the smart ppl out of them are using those tools, i used to confuse them, to convince their other clients..hahaha).
    ur articales are really good and i’ve recommended my friends to go through these articles. They also appreciated the recommendations.
    Thanx

    • Thanks Vinay. I’m flattered.

      Hope this is not like Dhoni’s Helicopter Shot – which he is not using in world cup as all stadiums are under “No Fly Zone”. 🙂

  11. Hello Hemantji
    Thanks for your reply. Sir i dont have any dependent now , but after 2-3 years my parents may be dependent on me as they cross the age 60 now and also i may marry within 1-2 years and may be child after 2-3 of marriage. so by this i think that i may have 4 dependents overall after 4 years. and think to buy this Term plan at age 25 which should have lesser premium as compare to the premium of age 29-30.
    so please suggest me what to do.

    Mukesh
    Hare Krishna.

      • Hi Hemant,
        Can you pls suggest a good term plan at age of 25, I have my parents dependant on me and would like to take 2 policies as you mentioned it would be better during claim settlement in case if something goes wrong. I did read the insurance claim settlement ratio however was not able to make up my mind clearly.

  12. Hi,

    useful article & contribution from readers is amazing…. I am new to this just got registered week back… I wanted to buy TERM Plan & i thought who ever offers the cheapest premium just buy them… simply bcoz if u survive nothing comes back.. now i have realised how wrong i was…. Thanx to every1 who have contributed & commented….

    Regards
    Murali

  13. Thanks for wonderfull post. I am currently based on USA and plan to return to India in another few more years. I have about insurance in US and want another some more insurance in India too, but not sure what are exact rules regarding insurance pertaining to NRI’s..and how complex would be to get claim settled if untimely death happens in US. I would appreciate if you can shed some light on this.

    • Hi Saurabh,

      There is not much difference in rules or process for NRIs & resident individuals. Just some extra documentation.

      As we are talking about term plan – your presence is required in India while taking term plan. (medical checkup as sum assured will be high)

  14. Hemant,

    Very well explained, thankyou.
    I also agree with Pattu that LIC is safe and good.
    I have had worst experience with Ageon & ICICI and canceled their term plan.
    Private insurance companies are like blood suckers!!! only sweet talk.
    I already have one with LIC and thinking of going with Kotak.

    Rakesh

    • Hi Rakesh,

      Can you share more on this “I have had worst experience with Ageon & ICICI and canceled their term plan.”

      Why you cancelled these plans??

  15. Hi Hemant,

    Both their services were poor. I had taken the policy online and paid the premium amount, however no one contacted me. I myself had to follow-up with them. It took over 3 weeks for them to get back to me. By the time I was frustrated and decided to cancel the policy.
    The kind of service they give before taking the policy, i wonder when it comes to settlement of claims what would be their service.

    Rakesh

      • I also had a nightmare of an experience trying to buy iprotect term policy from ICICI Prudential last year. I had to send them documents (such as proof of income) three times and also had to run around the hospital for sending the medical test reports.

        After a few months, I was frustrated with ICICI Prudential for their non-cooperation. I don’t think they actually want to sell iProtect term plan.

        Will ask everyone to remain away from ICICI Prudential.

  16. Hi Hemant, just joined recently–yr article is a real eye-opener !!! went through all the comments posted–have one simple query — shd not IRDA or some such body step in and appoint a scutinising agency to verify the original application form as well as the claim form and ensure they r filed in correctly? At least this way the rejections on account of incomplete/missing data will be minimised. Imagine the trauma the deceased’s family have to undergo when the claim gets rejected!!! I am sure in that frame of mind they would,nt even know whom to approach to get the sum assured. I simply can’t digest that the insurance company can reject a claim after collecting premiums every year . Also, you say ” you can’y buy unlimited insurance” Is there a cap on the amount of insurance that one can have? if so, what is the max amount ? regds

    • Hi Sreedhar,

      Your argument looks valid but IRDA or Indian Insurance companies follow the same rules which are followed by global insurance companies. Insurance is a contract of good faith.

      Regarding your query on cap of insurance or maximum life insurance one can have: It depends on once income – if you are young you can get 25-30 times of his annual income. With age this multiple decreases.

      • Hi Hemant,
        Is there any way of checking the original application form(filled 10 years ago) to verify if the agent has made any mistakes when filling?

  17. Hi Hemant,

    Your articles r really interesting & eye-openers.

    Btw, I am planning to invest in LIC Jeevan Anand policy for 20-25yrs with a premium of 20k/annum…I juz want your opinion about this policy.

    Is it a gud option ??.. if not then what are the other options…

    Plz suggest!

    Regards,
    Meenakshi

    • Hi Meenakshi,

      It’s not at all a good option.

      Just a suggestion think beyond insurance policies.

  18. Dear sir,

    I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE BEST TERM PLAN POLICY.

    AGE-40 years,

    dependant: wife and 1 child studiying in 7 th standard.
    myself:employee in private company.
    I need a policy which is for my family if i dies and take care my childs education and if i survives ,it is easy to convert in to other insurance policies.

    • Hi Veluswamy,

      I think this article & discussion in this article will be helpful for you in deciding term plan.

      I am not able to understand meaning of this “it is easy to convert in to other insurance policies.”

  20. Hi Hemanth,
    I have been planning to buy a Term plan for a long time. Your article came in handy but i am split between Term plan and term plans with Return back of premium. What is your take on the latter?

    Regards
    Kaushal

  22. @Pattu : 1 LIC is not a good option … people have more of blind faith on LIC .If it was so good it must have promoted the Term insurance Plan not the Endowment Plans which are your money suckers from last 60 Years , Educated the people about the importance of Life insurance not sold them as saving plans in.Today also LIC is more interseted in endowment plans and hence they have not reduced their premium

    2 CLAIM RATIO OF LIC IS LESS FOR THE MATTER THAT THEY TAKE MORE MORTALITY CHARGE
    for Example ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Rs. 5,900 while LIC charges Rs. 15,450 for 50 lakhs SA , it is higly obvious that LIC is charging 3 times more than another and will not mind paying for UN GENIUNE claim while it will pinch the private Insurer ( One should Know the Basis and Fundamental of Insurance LIC has already adujusted Mortality charge for UNGENUINE claims ).FOR LIC I WILL SEE THIS AS GENUINE PERSON IS PAYING THE PREMIUM FOR UNGENUINE CLAIMS TOO.

    3 LIC is still not promoting Term Plan( have you seen any AD) and PVT Companies are in fire fighting mode and promoting it heavly and want to grab evry person who understand Term Plan.

    4.LIC dont sell INSURANCE as INSURANCE and they have huge corpus but Little Insurance Liability.

    5. TERM Plan long term affair.What will you do if LIC gets privatze lets say after 15 Years.

    6.As far as your Blog is concerened .NOT EVERY PERSON DISCLOSE ALL MATERIAL FACTS , INFACT SOME WHILE TAKING INSURANCE PURPOSELY HIDE THAT EVEN FROM ADVISORS… HENCE CLAIM RATIO IS BOUND TO DIFFER

    @ Rakesh : ICICI has two options , One is customer will apply on his own and he has to coordinate everywhere ( Documents deposit,Medical Check up , medical linking Following and Issuance ) second is calling advisor and he will do all the work . Difference is in former option customer pays slightly lesser than later one since company will paying commission to advisor in Later option. But as HERGE said in this blog nobody wants to pay for services , you get frustrated and realize this when work is not Done . I am working for the Pvt company and sold almost 45 online Term Plans and i have got appreciations rather than complaint ( i can give u reference to cross check too)

    Now after getting frustrated and wasted lots to precious time if you go to LIC and pay the 3 times more premium for Term plan ,you are actually paying 3 times more commission to LIC advisor rather than getting the work done from Private Insurance Advisor and paying lesser commission to him with headache of the advsior to get the work done.Must think about this……….

    • Dear Chimay,
      Some part of my reasoning is based on blind faith. I am aware of that.
      I have already mentioned some thoughts on this above.

      You seem to have answered Hemant’s questions listed above:
      “If the only reason of claim rejection is filling form or disclosure – claim settlement ratios of insurance cos would have been almost similar”.

      by saying this is due to LIC’s higher mortality rate cushion.
      But ..
      2. Why is the claim settlement of group insurance the same for LIC and privates? Is this because they would rather settle a claim than lose the business of the corporate?

      I agree LIC should have promoted TI but public mentality about “money-back” is also to blame.

      Assuming claim rejection is only because of incorrect disclosure agents/advisors contribute to this heavily. The customer is to blame but agents contribute to this. So the privates should be instructing their agents better.
      I think it is a sensible approach by LIC to have a cushion in the mortality rates considering the eclectic Indian scenario.
      I dont have data but my guess is LIC has more small town and village penetration than privates. Financial literacy is pretty low in these places.

      So it would be safe to assume that 15-20 policies per 100 would have some sort of incorrect disclosure. Who knows mine might be one of that 15/20.
      I would rather pay higher mortality charges and be (reasonably) secure that since LIC has some cushion it would pay the claim.

      You might think that illogical. Perhaps yes. This is not science. This is personal finance. There maybe science in finance but personal finance is more about the individuals experiences and personality. I know several families who have suffered due to sudden death of the bread owner. So my thinking is guided by this. Not many other may have such experiences (good for them!)

      That aside, the question to ask is:
      If the privates beef up mortality charges will their claim settlement be the same as LIC’s. No one can answer that with data.

      There is a chance that LIC will become privatized:
      God give me the strength to worry about the things I control, the courage to accept the things I can’t and the wisdom to know the difference.

      Thanks for the comment. Made me think after a long while.

  23. Nice discussion Pattu and Chimay. I think Pattu’s point of view is correct, as the basic reason for buying a term plan is to make sure that one’s loved ones do not suffer after one’s untimely death. My iTerm plan, from Aegon Religare, is a term plan. God forbid, if something unfortunate happens to me, I would want my family to get this money without any hassles. And it is here that the LIC scores over other insurers, especially the private ones. But then, why did i still buy a term plan from AR? Because:-

    1. I disclosed every information correctly at the time of buying the plan. I believe most of the claims that are rejected are because of incorrect information provided. I understand that the private insurers are here to do business and not charity, for that matter even LIC is here to do business. But i still believe they cannot reject the claim just like that.

    2. I believe the term plan “market” in India is still at a nascent stage. There were not many online term plan providers, probably none, in the market 3-4 years ago. Now, as I write, there are 7. So, with the increase in competition, the quality of the service is bound to increase. And this will get reflected in the next 4-5 years. I would like to see the claim settlement ratios in 2015 may be and then judge the private insurers.

    Having said that, i hope and pray that my loved ones never have to use this facility that I have provided them 🙂

  24. Dear Pattu and All my Dear Friends
    Please go through the current month edition of MONEYLIFE MAGAZINE which states why online term plans have less premium and why you should opt for online term plan but the point is
    It seems that you are really scared when it comes for the claim matter
    The claim ratio of ICICI PRU is 92% i really dont know about others.(Disclaimer I will keep my discussion for Individuals and EDUCATED People living in METRO cities and that is the reason online term plan for ICICI is available in 54 metro cities which not even include city like Ghaziabad .These people are soo educated that they can give all the GENUINE details)

    For benefit of ALL let me share some quide rules while taking online Term plan and you can get relaxed as far as YOUR INDIVIDUAL claim is concerned.
    1 Disclose all the facts might be small for you but still disclose
    2 Download the Form which you have filled.( Option is there to download before payment option,though you will get with the policy bond but it is advisable to do so in case you dont get that in policy bond)
    3 Ask for your Medical Reports from your advisor and keep the copy of that with policy Bond.Company doesnt even charge from you for this only you need to give a request letter for the same.
    4.If you have any problem DISCLOSE it completely and pay extra premium asked by the company

    Following are the points why i don’t Like LIC term Plan
    1 In LIC you dont get complete Transparency . Policy bond does Not come with any photocopies of your Form Filled that means they can play any game with you
    2 If you have any problem and takes policy with LIC still you will live in the fear that LIC might or Might not give the claim after shelling out 3 times extra premium. while by disclosing the problem with the PVT company charges you EXTRA premium
    3 I know many LIC advisors , usually they are upto ur life for taking any endowment plan . Just ASK THEM you want a Term plan cover of more than 1 Crore which is really not much seeing our current salary and income , believe me why will start running from your phoen call.The Reason behind this is it is really tough for term plan of more than 1 crore getting issued easily.In fact In private comapny it is fairly easy as they have correct process to get the case of even 5 crore issued on priority.

    The Private companies have twisted themselves for the Today market scenerio of term plan but not a Giant like LIC ….WHY?

    @ Hemant : I am really sorry to say but your opinion seems to be biased towards LIC with out any CONCRETE DATA or COMPLETE RESEARCH.when a comapny like LIC had never focused on term plans , you are actually guiding the people to take from the company which doesnot want even to get that product promoted.If LIC is passionate about that they must have come with the online Term Plans only for metro cities.Since you know the value of Insurance , i need a complete reasearch and unbiased data to prove which is better .For Your Blog ” if the premium of all the companies differ how can it be assured that the claim rejection be same and Do you really want your follwer/READER to cough up 3 times EXTRA to pay for UNGENUINE Claims of other persons”
    I WANT TO ASK ONE QUESTION FROM THIS BLOG : CLAIM REJECTION IS 4% OF LIC WHAT IF YOUR CLAIM COMES IN 4 % , YOU WILL BE HADICAPPED SINCE YOUR NOMINEE DONT HAVE ANY PROOF EXCEPT POLICY BOND. CLAIM SETTLMENT OF ICICI IS 92% WHAT ARE YOUR CHANCE TO GET THE CLAIM GETTTING REJECTED IN THIS CASE IF YOU FOLLOW MY ABOVE STATED GUIDE WHILE TAKING TERM PLANS.THE REAL QUESTION IS, IS IT GOOD TO HAVE A BLIND FAITH OR TAKING CONTROL WHILE TAKING THIS IMPOTANT DECISION?. PLEASE SHARE YOU VIEWS ……………………………………….

    • Hi Chinmay,
      Why you are feeling sorry – you are just sharing your views. We may or may not agree with you – that’s up to us.
      But I must say today you are not in good mood 🙁 – what happened fight with spouse or got scolding from your boss. 🙂 (I know you will not like what I have written but even I don’t like the way you have written the things. THINK)
      But I am bit surprised – where I have written that one should buy LIC Term Plan??
      If claim settlement ratio is not important why you are mentioning ICICI is having 92%??
      On TFL I am not showing any Financial Porn – I am giving a chance to people that they should learn the concepts through reading & interaction. I don’t want to give a short term solution to reader’s long term problem. Long term problem is they are not financial literate or lack ability to make important financial decisions but they want a short term solution – which product/which plan.
      Also read my reply to 2 queries regarding ICICI Term Plan
      https://www.retirewise.in/2011/04/why-life-insurance-claim-gets-rejected.html
      But why I am saying all this to an insurance agent of ICICI – I think I wasted my 5 mins.
      Note: keep ur caps lock off – if you want to add reply.

  25. Hi Hemant,
    I am really happy to know that you are not biased :-),I know my words are harsh and might hurt you but beleive me i am with you as far as financial literacy is concerened and i only get upset when i see people not taking rational desicion as far as their Financials are concerned and people going on blind faith rather than taking control.Whenever financial decision are concerened they take a emotional decision rather than logical and in the Blog too i find more attachment towards LIC as a matter of emotion rather than logical

    believe me I am Not promoting ICICI but I have taken the example of ICICI to quote as i am unaware about other PVT insurance cos.

    and let the people take their individual decision but better that to be on the basis of financial literacy just not on the faith.

  26. Hi,

    Your article really very help us to understand about the term insurance.

    I have some question while going for term insurance.

    I am 26 yr old. Single, living in pune & my annual income is 2 lacs.
    I am planing to take 15 – 20 Lac Term Insurance plan, but i am not able to decide the better one.
    Also please guide that which is better term insurance plan & is it better with rider or without rider.

    Please let me know whether i take term insurance.

    • Hi Deepak,
      Thanks for appreciating our effort.
      My suggestion is go through whole discussion on this post – may be you get your answer.

  27. Dear Hemant, readers and agents of privates insurers,

    Have a look at Moneylife article extract:
    “Indeed, low premium is only one factor in the insurance process. Going for the cheapest would be justified if your claim is processed and paid without hassles. If there are glitches in claim processing for no fault of yours, even the lowest premium becomes a dead loss. This is so not only because the whole purpose of taking a cover is defeated, but also because of what is called an ‘opportunity loss’—if you were with another insurer, you could have got your claim accepted, though the premium you paid would have been higher. Clearly, the capacity and intention of the insurer to pay a claim is more important than the low-priced product it is offering. Remember, unlike the products and services that we use (which offer instant performance to the buyer), a financial product, especially an insurance policy, is only a promise—one of payment to the nominee if the buyer expires. Life insurance purchase should give you peace of mind and not sleepless nights wondering if the insurance company will really pay at the moment of truth—your death claim. There is no easy way to figure out in advance whether the insurance company will reject your claim(s) or not. We can start by examining whether the current online term plan premiums are ‘unrealistically’ low.”

      • I hope not!! This is not really in favour of online plans and actually justifies going to LIC!

        Another aspect which I think is ridiculous is some bloggers recommend a wait and watch approach with respect to the online term plans. Wait for what? For one to grow old and pay higher premium?

  28. Dear Sir,

    Hope you are fine over there.I’am 27 years old and i have my dear father,mother and my wife as my dependents (kids in future ) .Personally i like pure term plans in case of Life Insurance and Health Insurance. I already have LIC Amulya Jeevan Term insurance plan for 35 years and sum assured 50 Lakhs and LIC Jeevan Arogya for their Health Insurance.
    – What’s your opinion about LIC Jeevan Amulya Plan ?
    – Should i have to take one more Term Insurance plan or increase the assured sum as they are completely depending upon me ?

    I like all you articles and your reply will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

  29. Hi Hemant,
    i have a doubt regarding home loan insurance…I am planning to go for a housing loan from LIC for 25 lakhs (or shall i go with SBI?)..on which i plan to take home loan insurance (mortgage insurance) the rate for which is 2% of loan amount…which will be 50000…is it a feasible option or shall i go for a term insurance instead for sum assured of 50 lakhs or more. at present i don’t have any term insurance…i only have medical insurance of 2.5 lakhs for me & my wife + company covered insurance

  30. Hemant et al,
    Thank you for this blog. Am a hard core personal financial enthusiast myself and would love to contribute.

    I can truly understand the complexities that companies have created in this product space. I ve done research myself on many term plans ( part of me getting financially literate ) before finally deciding that my total insurance should be split between 2 firms ( LIC + Kotak )

    Though doubts remain:
    – If LIC is real good, financially strong and for the people, why are their term plans so expensive ? Why dont they push for this amazing product ?
    – LIC is certainly not here for social service. They want to make money as much as anyone else. Thus using the claim settlement ratio as a basis for your decision may not work. Will it?
    – Stats and averages aside, in cases where a Pvt Insurer genuinely rejects a claim, I doubt LIC will not reject it. And vice-versa. All insurance cos are regulated by the same IRDA.
    – Claim settlement ratio is often used by people to showcase their grip on the subject. Do we fully understand what this comprises ? Is LIC high on this because most claims are moneyback/endowment policies ?

    Note: I am not an insurance agent nor do I favour any company. Just here to gain / give some experiences and insights.

  31. Hi All,
    I am working in a finance company which is working in remote rural areas of Gharwal region. We also provide insurance facility to our customer at a vry cheap premium rate. Before giving an insurance to any of our customer we calculate his/her human capital and then only we offer thm insurance. after reading this article i would like to share few things with all of you. The best way to know the amount of insurance cover one should take is to know about the human capital he/she is having. for every individual human capital is different. it is average of total income till a person retires and total expenses till a person dies.

    • Hi Madhuri,
      Really appreciate your work that you doing in such tough conditions. Human life value is a great way to check Insurance requirement.

  32. Hello All,

    I am 26Yrs Old Married, Wife age 26Yrs.No Kid. Me Earning 50K/mnt can manage to save 25K/mnt.

    I need to Do a Financial Planning out of this saving.
    one of my Agent recommended the below option:

    Mr Samir (26 Yrs)

    Name of Plan Term PPT Mode Sum Assured Accident Premium Bonus
    Jeevan Anand 25 25 Yly 3,00,000 3,00,000 12,373 45
    Ltd Payment Life Policy 54 25 Yly 15,00,000 15,00,000 40,695 70
    Jeevan Mitra Triple Cover 30 30 Yly 3,00,000 3,00,000 11,660 50

    TOTAL: Total Sum Assured-21,00,000 Accident-21,00,000 Total Premium Yearly-Rs 64,728

    – For my Wife i am taking LIC Term Plan of 25Lacs having monthly prm of 7400RS.

    I am confused right now for my Planning, of weather i should Opt for LIC Term Plan of 25Lacs or 50 Lac for 25 yrs where premium would be 7,500 or 14500Rs respectively instead of above mentioned Policies.
    My View:

    For Death:Term Plan
    For Medical: Medclaim of 5 Lacs
    For Investment: Mutual Fund with SIP option.
    monthly investment of 10K – 2K/per MF Aggresive approach – 70%-30% of Debt. for next 10 Yrs

    Because what i understand is If i am considering Insurance as an investment return then i guess MF will any day give me more return if i invest in top 5 MF.
    Correct me if i am wrong.

    I cannot mix My Insurance Policy as a Investment Instrument.

    Please help in planning the same at earliest.

    • Hai Sameer,

      No wonder for your confusions 🙂 you know the answers for all your queries and still you are seeking an answer 🙂

      1- Please don’t take the policies mentioned by your agent,neither it’s not a good insurance nor a investment.Agent will only try to sell the policies in which he will get higher commission.With the above mentioned policies he will get around 35 %commission and with the term plans he will only get 2 % commission..so hope you understand his interest on you.If you take these three insurance your Total Sum Assured is-21,00,000,Accident-21,00,000 and Total Premium Yearly-Rs 64,728 !!

      And you also know that by spending just 14,500 you will get a Life Insurance cover for 50 Lakhs in Term Plans.(if you take term plan from Kotak or ICICI,the annual premium will be less than 8500 !! )

      Then why should you take those 3 plans,you can take pure term plans.

      2.why should you take an Term plan for your wife ? does she have any dependents ? if not,there is no need of taking a policy for her.

      3.You are right regarding the mutual funds,since you are young…you can invest in 3-4 Equity Diversified Mutual Funds through SIP for at least 15-20 years,which depends upon your long term goals.

      to Conclude,you can do

      1- Take term Insurance Policy for minimum 50 Lakhs.Split it take policies for 25 lakhs each from 2 companies.

      Preference : LIC + Kotak / ICICI

      2 – Take adequate Health Insurance for your family

      I think Apollo Munich Health Insurance is a good option,You can take Easy Health Exclusive Plan + Critical Illness for 4 lakhs .The yearly premium will be only around 9000.

      3.Many people ignore the importance of taking an Accident Insurance Plan.It will be better if you take an Accident Insurance Plan.There is many companies offering this policy.

      you can just visit – chola insurance website

      4.park some money in your savings account for emergency needs

      5.Other savings can be invested in Mutual Funds,you can select one funds each from Large Cap,Large & Mid Cap,Mid cap and Multi Cap for 15-20 years.

      Hope your confusions are cleared now or else you will get reply from more TFL readers.

      Regards,

      Shamshad.M.M

      • Hello,
        I am still confused, I need to cover my 80C for HUF account.
        Thus i was thinking of these Insurance.
        Term Plan:
        If i take an term Plan for 35 Yrs of LIC. But what after 35 yrs where my age would be of 61 yrs. That is the most crucial time. if i go at that time for extension then the premium after 30 yrs would be in multiple than this, and even an complexity of health would also come into picture and may not even get any insurance.

        Accident Insurance:
        which one to take ? Partial Loss / Disability ?

        Major Concern: Any good 80C Tax saver instruments considering the removal of ELSS in 2012.

        Please guide. I need your inputs.

        • Hai Sameer,

          Well,now i’am confused 🙂 my confusions are ;

          – what do you mean by Life Insurance ? Why are you considering insurance as covering instrument of 80c ? are you taking Life insurance to cover your financial requirements on your absence or your 80c now ?

          Why you are worried a lot about your Life cover after 35 years !!! it seems like Life Insurance is the only source of income for your family … within this 35 years can’t you get into a good financial position ???

          Instead of thinking about your insurance covers after 35 years,just think about your retirement corpus you need at that time and make good savings for that.

          Regarding the Accident Insurance,almost all Individual Accident Insurance policy covers both partial loss and permanent disability.In case of permanent disability you will get the full sum assured and in the case of partial disability you will the amount depends upon your loss.

          Section 80C of the Income Tax Act [1] allows certain investments and expenditure to be tax-exempt.The total limit under this section is Rs. 100,000 (Rupees One lac) which can be any combination of the below:

          Investing in Provident Fund or Public Provident Fund,Pension Plans,Investment in Equity Linked Savings schemes (ELSS) of mutual funds,Investment in National Savings Certificates,Tax saving Fixed Deposits provided by banks for a tenure of 5 years,Post office investments.

          Regards,

          Shamshad.M.M

  33. Hi ,
    KUDOS for the good work of enhancing everyone’s knowledge.
    I have a query. I took LIC Amulya Jeevan policy two years back. I took a scanned copy of all papers that the agent filled and I signed. I was going through them last week and observed that there were details of my family – father mother , number of brothers/sisters etc.
    I observed that in Sisters column only one sister is mentioned. Actually I have two sisters, though one is living with my uncle since childhood. But legally she is my sister. So legally I should have mentioned TWO SISTERS. But the form submitted with LIC has online ONE.
    Will this lead to rejection of claim in future.
    Is there a way to get this corrected/rectified.
    I asked the agent but he says it wont create any problem; but I am worried

    Regards,
    Nikhil

    • Hai Nikhil,

      I think it wont create any problem for any sort of claim rejection.If you still worried about that,you can go direct to their office and make the changes…
      All the best..

  34. Hey,

    I believe we should go for the most reliable one at the cheapest cost. I went for SBI in this case. This could have been LIC or HDFC. But I feel the premium doesnt matter that much when compared to the mental peace we get. For example if SBI with all the rider is 12 K, some one like Religare might be 6K. But the question to myself was do I know enough about religare to trust it. The answer was no. So I narrowed it down to 3-4 reputed players and chose the one that suited me the best. At the end of the day I wil not be there to fight with these guys to get the money 🙂

      • Hi,

        I was searching for opinions on Term plans and found your blog in between. I am glad to meet you and would like to thank you for your valuable suggestions. I am 29 years old and decided to go for 2 plans instead of one. Now I have a confusion on choosing the appropriate Insurance provider. I am looking for 3 options.

        1. LIC + HDFC (25 lakhs each and going for PDB rider in HDFC for 25lakhs as LIC doesn’t have any riders)
        2. SBI+ HDFC( 25 lakhs each and ADB rider for 25lakhs in HDFC and PDB rider for 25lakhs in SBI)
        3. LIC+SBI(25lakhs each and PDB rider for 25lakhs in SBI)

        Could you please tell me whether the options are Okay, If so which is the better one among those?

        • Hi Krishnam,
          If this is a multiple choice question 😉 I will choose first option. But if you want to try other choices read what I have replied to Rajesh. In case still you have some confusion, feel free to ask.

      • Hey Hemant,
        Just an update from my side. iam planning to take another term insurance (Still not decided between LIC or SBI) for higher amount 75 Lahks/1 C and close the current one with SBI .

        Reason is that rates have dropped drastically in the past couple of years. For ex Iam paying 11,400 for 30L insurance with some riders. I can get 50L insurance with 25L riders for the same amount now. Only hassle is I ahve to again go through medicals and fill some papers. Worth the trouble I feel.

  35. Hi Hemant,

    I have money back plan from LIC with a risk cover of 7 lakh(14 lakh in case of accident). I pay 24500/- per annum for that(Starting Aug, 2007). As I was not Finicially Literate 🙂 when i bought this plan I couldn’t find the catch money back plans have. But now i have realized the crap it is.

    I want to surrender this policy and take term of 10 lakh from LIC itself which I will get for very less and invest rest in PPF account. Can you tell me how much loss i will suffer if I surrender my policy? Do you think I am doing right thing? This policy is in force for past 4 years now and I have recieved first 70K in 4th Year.

    Thanks in advance,
    Harikrishan

    • Hi Harikrishan,
      The bad part is most of the people in India don’t understand what insurance is why it is taken but good part is now you are not part of them. I would like to suggest you before buying term plan you should check your insurance requirement. Even if you go by thumb rule you need 13-15 times of your yearly income if you are around 30, if you are in 40s you can have around 8-10 times of yearly income & you can have insurance cover of 5-6 times of yearly income if you are touching 50s.
      Regarding your existing money back policy you have 2 choices one is surrendering it – this will fetch you hardly any money. Other is making it paid up – paid-up is when you stop paying premium but do not withdraw the money from the Insurance company, the company reduces all your benefits proportionality. In case of Endowment & Money Back Plans Insurance Amount ceases to exist.

  36. Hi Hemant,

    I am planning to go for term plan in this way:

    LIC Anmol Jeevan – 10 lakhs for 25 yrs – Rs 4089 / yr
    SBI Life – Saral Sheild – 10 lakhs for 25 yrs – Rs 4004 / yr (with 2 riders 7 lakhs each )
    Kotak eTerm plan – 10 lakhs for25 yrs – Rs 2220 / yr

    Total investment – Rs 10,313 / yr
    Insurance cover – 30 lakhs (sum assured) + 14 lakhs in riders(ADB and ATPD)

    I am recently married and my age is 31 yrs

    Kindly advise.
    Thanks,
    Rajesh

    • Hi Rajesh,
      Its pleasure to hear that these days’ people are taking term plan very seriously & this clearly shows that how much you care about your family. I really liked the way you have planned to take the term plan but would like to add some small suggestions.
      My suggestion will be drop the idea of SBI Life Saral Shield – in place of this increase term in kotak term to Rs 25 Lakh. Kotak preferred term will cost you around Rs 3600 & if we add LIC Anmol Jeevan premium in it – your total cost will be Approximately Rs 7700. Now you should go for a Comprehensive insurance policy of Rs 20 Lakh from some general insurance company – this may cost you around Rs 2600 per year. Now your total premium per year is same as what you were planning to pay but you have additional life cover of Rs 5 Lakh & also Rs 13 Lakh additional accidental cover with more benefits.

    • Hi Anna,
      What do you mean by Comrehensive Insurance Policy – are you looking for term plan or accidental insurance.

      • DEAR SIR,

        I HAVE 3 CHILD, (1 BOY -2YEAR, 2GIRL(4 &5)
        I AM READY TO PAY YEARLY 25K , THIS IS FOR MY CHILD FUTURE IF ANY DEATH,CAN YOU SUGGEST TO ME WHICH PLAN I INVEST?

        PLEASE I AM WAITING FOR YOUR REPLY MAIL

  38. Hi Hemant’ I have gone through your views. Those were subjective, i appreciate that. For me Pls suggest an insurance company for Term Insurance. I am married and have 2 children. Age is 31 Years and i am only the working member.
    1. Pls suggest top 3 insurance companies primarily from the perepective that claim rejective should be lower, Premium is 2nd aspect..
    2. Insurance Cover and period of insance

    Best Regards, Vikram

  39. In teh term plan, what will be the maximum sum assured. Which factor restrict me to get the maximum sum assured. Suppose my annual incomce is 3 Lack and my age is 34 yes, then what is max sum assured i can take.

    • Hi Sanjay,
      Income & health are the factors that restricts the maximum insurance. But the thing is why you need maximum sum assured – going by the thumb rules you can take term insurance of Rs 30 – 36 lakh.

  40. Hi rajeshji,

    i would like to ask u, i m 28 year old, i want take 50 lakhs term plan, so should i take one or divided in two, pls suggest me companies with premium.i m not chuwing tobacco.
    so pls suggest me what can i do?
    thank you
    niraj kumar rai

    • Hi Niraj,
      You can still divide it in 2 parts. Few insurance companies have special products for non-smokers – try kotak.

    • Hi Pawan,
      Why do you want so much of term insurance – I don’t find any good reason that it should be above Rs 20 Lakh.

  42. Hi,
    I want to take One Crore Term insurance plan to cover my loan. My age is 47. I have checked with LIC which is very expensive – about Rs. 78300/- per annum and SBI is about Rs. 46325/- Both plans are covered upto age 65. Other private operators are offering in the range of 35 to 50K. Please advice which one to go for. Most important factor is claim settlement assurance.
    Thanks
    Ravindra Telkar

    • Hi Ravindra,
      Even in private insurance you have some decent claim settlement ratios – check ICICI/Birla/HDFC/Kotak etc

  43. Hi Hemant,

    Thanks for your suggestion. I have changed plan accordingly as following:

    LIC Anmol Jeevan – 10 lakhs for 25 yrs – Rs 4089 / yr
    Kotak eTerm plan – 25 lakhs for 25 yrs – Rs 3639/ yr

    Tata AIG Accidental Insurance of 10 lakhs – Rs 1486/yr (Also covers Accident Death & Dismemberment Plus Permanent Total Loss of Use).

    Total investment – Rs 9214 / yr

    Also, I was thinking to take iTermPlan from AEGON Religare instead of LIC Anmol Jeevan in this way:

    AEGON iTermPlan – 10 lakhs for 5 yrs – Rs 1721/ yr (would renew at end of 5 yrs)

    So my total investment woud be Rs 6846 /Yr instead of Rs 9214 / yr. Kindly suggest.

    Rajesh.

  44. Hi Sir .
    Meri age 47 he.D.O.B.16 November 1963 he. muje term plan lena he. me annul 18 thousend invest kar sakta hu.Muje 2007 me toung cancer ka opration kiya tha.hal me bilkul thik hu.muje kis tarah aur consi comp. term plan degi ? me kis tarah invest karu.me government employe hu.

    • Bharat Ji,
      Accha laga sunke ki aap term plan lena chate hain – magar samajh len ki term plan ek kharcha hai na ki Investment.
      Aapke prashn se main kooch cheeje samajh nahin paya hun – meri salah hogi ki aap 2-3 vittiye salahkaron se milen. Apni jaroorat unhe samjhaye – aur unmain se kisi 1 ki salah ka palan karen.

  46. Dear Hemant, Dhawal, Pattu, Cinmay, Shamshad, et al.
    The animated discussion was very exciting to read and follow. Term plans are a must for everyone who wishes to see his dependents at least financially care free after s/he is gone. But there are certain things that i wish to bring to notice of all readers. These are not suggestions, advises, data, questions, queries or anything….just some things i felt to share:

    1) Why doesn’t IRDA make disclosure norms more transparent on claims settlement ratios. For every type of policies life insurance companies (LIs) sell, there is no category-wise data available anywhere. Even in case of very good settlement ratios for LIC and some pvt LIs, it is never told if the claims were settled as part of maturity settlement or death claims.

    2) Why doesn’t any official from the LIs contact the insured/proposer within the next 7 business days (which is within the 15-days free look period) from the initiation of policy. The official must be bound to tell the insured about the benefits of the policy, cross check the claims made by agents/DSAs, the comparative of other policies by the same company on expenses count and on count of claims settlement (as in 1 above), and some other customer friendly disclosures. This kind of call must be recorded, transcript-ed and a signed copy of the same sent to the customer by post if s/he wishes to continue the policy after such an discussion. A one time charges may be levied for the purpose. It will also drastically change the number of spurious policies that are bought by customers every years for the sake of parking benami money or investments sold in the guise of insurance.

    I am sharing my recent (last week’s) experience with you on how to choose a new term plan. It is not scientific but intuitive. And you know many intuitive things akways work better for many people. I already have a term plan from LIC for 10L, taken 3 years back for around 3,350/-. I also have some pnas for 1L each from LIC that were sold to me as investments or as a plank to fulfill the annual targets of my insurance advisor (not a relative but a broker as well). So in all i was insured for 13L and paying around 19,500/- as annual premium. Sounds too expensensive na. So I was in the mood for going to buy another term plan, this time for 35L for myself and 25L for my wife.the process i followed was
    (a) I found the rates for the various term plans in the range for 25L to 35L and 30years to 35Y term. This included going to policybaazar, bimadeal, and some other insurance advisories for online plans. I got a list of some of the companies from there.
    (b) I looked at all the data at one mint, most of the discussions going on this page and registered myself with Kotak, Aviva, Religare, MetLife, ICICI Pru, etc. I waited for any repsponse from their side as i had clearly mentioned that i’m agoing for a term plan and filled out their forms onlines. Only MetLife personnel called me.
    (c) When i was asked to pay premium and deposit the doccuments, i insisted to get my medical check-up done beforehand and said that i was willing to pay for that. Obviusly all companies said that it was not necessary as i was only 31. But finally MetLife agreed.
    (d) When i checked the data on IRDA site, i stubled upon a section listed as “Public disclosure”, where i found some annual reports from all companies. This was very tedius to go through but gave an insight that many reputed pvt cos. and LIC have more ULIP/endowment/pension based policies and very less pure play insurance covers. The financial data is voluminous and can reveal upon close inspection some very peculiar insights. I admit my inspection was not scientific and neither i used Excel to copare data but i was relying on mu intuitions.
    Using all such tools i finally went for MetLife for 2 policies – Mine 31 years age, 35Y term, 35y premium paying term, 35L cover @ Rs, 11,800/-; and My Wife 33 years age, 35Y term, 25L cover, @ 4,500/-. No i am covered for 45L (if consider only term plans) for Rs. 15,150. When i feel in 3-4 years time that i have more liabilities to take care of in future, i will add another term plan for 25L to 35l taking my total cover above 75L during my working life of upto 65Y. after that progressively my cover will atomatically lapse if i survive past that period.

    with regards and wishes for an Umbrella of Insurance in season of Risky rains

  47. Dear Hemant,
    I am a 27 year old professional with my wife and parents dependent on me. My net monthly income is around 51,000 Rs. My job started since 15th May 2011. I am planning for a house loan of around 20,00,000 Rs next month onwards. I have two younger brothers and will have to plan for their marriage in the next 5 years time. My father is a retired person and is not having any source of pension. My wife is looking for a job and might get it in 1-2 months. Her probable monthly income would be around 7000-8000 Rs. We plan for a her postgraduation next year and her fees for two years would be around 3.5 lacs which I plan to cover through an education loan. Her stipend at that time would be around 5,000 Rs per month. I have done a financial planning as below. Kindly let me know whether it is appropriate and make suggestions for further improvement if required:
    1) Medical insurance for myself and my wife – LIC Arogya – 2000 per day HCB (for my wife and myself – each) – 2,00,000 term insurance and 2,00,000 accidental rider for each of us. Status – Started.
    2) Medical insurance for my parents (Age 55 and 54 years) – planning to get a mediclaim cover of 5,00,000 floater from Bank of Baroda – National Insurance partnership – the premium would be around – 6950. Status – Planning in next week
    3) Life term insurance for myself – 70,00,000 cover. – 50% from LIC and 50% from ICICI prudential. Status – Planning in next week
    4) Tax saver SIP – HDFC and ICICI – 1000 Rs each per month. Status – taken
    5) SBI – Gold fund – Bought units worth Rs 10000 and plan to invest Rs 1000 every month. Planning for marriage of two younger brothers. Status – taken.
    6) Further plans for tax saving – Start tax saver SIP of 2000 Rs per month more and put the remaining amount (deduct tax saver SIP and life insurance premium from 100000) in PPF or LIC Jeevan Anand.

    My queries:
    1) How much disability rider should I take along with the term insurance?
    2) Which one is better – PPF or LIC Jeevan Anand from the point of view of investment?
    3) Is the amount of medical insurance adequate for me ? (Pl. Note – I get free treatment for common illnesses as a part of the medical insurance cover provided by my company. Major surgeries are not covered in that.)
    4) Is the amount of money put in tax saver SIP adequate or should it be increased or decreased?

    • Hi Shyamsunder,
      Please find inline reply.
      1) How much disability rider should I take along with the term insurance?
      >My suggestion is you should buy a separate comprehensive accidental policy
      https://www.retirewise.in/2011/08/accidental-insurance-policy.html
      2) Which one is better – PPF or LIC Jeevan Anand from the point of view of investment?
      >PPF is a much better option.
      3) Is the amount of medical insurance adequate for me ? (Pl. Note – I get free treatment for common illnesses as a part of the medical insurance cover provided by my company. Major surgeries are not covered in that.)
      >LIC Jeevan Arogya is not a proper medicalim policy
      https://www.retirewise.in/2011/06/lic-jeevan-arogya.html
      4) Is the amount of money put in tax saver SIP adequate or should it be increased or decreased?
      >As you are young you can have more exposure to equities & ELSS is the great way to invest. You should utilize elss in best possible manner.

  48. Hi Hemant,

    You have been writing some great stuff here and I really appreciate all the information shared by you and other users as well.

    I am 37 yrs, married and have a 8 yr old son. I needed to understand if going for a “LIC only” term plan for 1 Cr (like the one below) is a good idea or should I go ahead and split it between LIC and say lets a private insurer like Kotak with a 50L and 50L split so that I can take advantage of both the coverage of 1 Cr but effectively spend less (potentially) on the premium. Would like to know your thoughts on the same.

    LIC Only policy breakup:
    37-45 (Max risk) – 1Cr
    46 – 50 (High Risk) – 75 Lakhs
    50-55 (Moderate Risk) – 50 Lakhs
    55-60 (Low risk) – 25 Lakhs

    Manoj

  51. Hi Sumeet et al

    I took LIC’s “Jeevan shree” policy in 2004 and paid 8 instalments. The sum insured is 5L, I think this is unrealistic now.
    I want to surrender this policy and want to go for a pure term policy for 1 Cr.
    I have few questions –
    1. Is it better to surrender my current policy (Jeevan shree) ?
    2. Which term policy I should go for? Figure is for 1 Cr Rs.
    3. I want to cover Accidental Death, Critical Illness, Accidental Disability Rider under the term plan
    4. Is it better to divide 1 Cr into 50 L each with LIC and Kotak(Kotak E-Preferred ) ?

    Pls suggest.

    Navin

    • Hi Navin,
      Jeevan shree 1 was ok product with higher guaranteed bonuses. So if you don’t have cash flow constraints you may continue this policy & can consider it as debt part of asset allocation. Buying term plan is a great & most important financial decision. Your existing insurance is too low so you can buy online term plan to bridge the gap. Kotak E-preferred is a good plan but you can also check HDFC Click 2 protect. My suggestion is you should buy a separate policy for accidental insurance rather than as a rider.

      • Hi Hemant,

        I am 31yrs old IT professioanl, as suggested by you to take 2 term insurance policy, I am planning to take 50L each for 34yrs term. I want to take your opinion for Aegon Religare iTerm Plan, I have not seen any mention abt this policy in any of your discussion, is there any hiden clause (which you can highlight) or HDFC click2 and Kotak E are better than that.

        Secondaly, I wanted to know if these annual prm which we pay towards term insurance is constant till the tenure of insurace (apart from some changes like change in service tax),

        Pls claarify.

        Thanks,
        Amit

  52. Hi Hemant,

    You have been shating some great stuff and I really appreciate all the information shared by you and other users as well.

    i am 41 ,working in Merchant navy, recently took term insurance in LIC for 50 laks , Planning to take one more for 50Laks from SBI is it worth to take ? kindly advise. Any thing extra i need to consider.

    Thanks & regards ,

    suresh

    • Hi Suresh,
      As you are in Mercent Navy – I presume that you are an NRI. Being an NRI you can’t take online term plans which are comparatively cheap. LIC is having highest claim settlement ratio but there premiums are double then most of other offline term plans & even thrice if compared do online term plans. That doesn’t mean LIC was a bad choice but will suggest you to take next term plan from Kotak or Birla – this will help you in reducing overall premium outgo. Normally we suggest that one should not take riders with term plan but in your case it is tough to get accidental policy due to your job profile – you can try getting it as a rider with term plan.

  53. Hi Hemant,
    Thanx for the erstwhile informative articles, i am 28 yrs , married person and have one child, i have one question in mind i want to take one term plan which should cover sum of 50 lac. as i am confused a bit among so many policies in market, Suggest some good policies in this regard your suggestion would be highly apprciable.
    second one is that is there anything specific that i must consider before going to have it. which one is best in terms of all factors between pvt comps and public like lic, please give ur advice

    thanx and regards,

  54. Hi Hemant,
    Highly worthfull article.
    As you mentiones divide term plan in two part- How??
    Please elaborate.This will increase the cost of policy.

    I am in process to buy soon plz clarified.

    • Hi Shyam,
      The difference in premium will not be huge but dividing policy can be helpful at the time of claim settlement.

  55. I called Kotak today. the guys from CC told me that it is better to go for offline plan instead of online as offline has medical test to support. Later on, company can find weakness on the online plans as these doesn’t has medical certificate.

    Any clue .?

    • Hi Hemant,

      I also got the same reply from kotak staff that taking offline plan is better than online. Are other companies offering online policies telling the same??

  56. Re-posting it as I did see any response..

    I took LIC’s “Jeevan shree” policy in 2004 and paid 8 instalments. The sum insured is 5L, I think this is unrealistic now.

    I want to surrender this policy and want to go for a pure term policy for 1 Cr.
    I have few questions –

    1. Is it better to surrender my current policy (Jeevan shree) ?
    2. Which term policy I should go for? Figure is for 1 Cr Rs.
    3. I want to cover Accidental Death, Critical Illness, Accidental Disability Rider under the term plan
    4. Is it better to divide 1 Cr into 50 L each with LIC and Kotak(Kotak E-Preferred ) ?

    Pls suggest.

    • Hi Navin,
      Regarding your queries-
      1.I will suggest you to surrender this policy.
      2.You can distribute your SA in two parts i.e you can have online term plans from ICICI & Kotak.
      3.You should also take Comprehensive accidental policy which also covers disability. Amount should be similar to term plan. Premiums are very low in this category.You can buy comprehensive accidental policy of Rs 1 Crore from Apollo Munich – premium will be Rs 13000.

  57. What’s your take on Aviva i-Life? Currently it is the cheapest term plan in India.. Can you share some thoughts?

    • Hi CJ,
      I think above articles is all around your question – I will suggest you to check HDFC & ICICI.

  58. Dear Sir,
    I already have 3 insurance policies – LIC money back, Birla sunlife endowment plan and Kotak Super advantage plan. now i want to get term plan for myself my age is 28 years . please tell me some good term plan. also give advantages and disadvatages of online term plan purchase and normal term plan purchase from agent.

    • Hi Ravindra,

      I will like to suggest you that all the previous policies which you have mentioned, should make them surrender if the policies have completed three years.You can have online term plan from ICICI & Kotak, distribute the SA equally among the policies.
      Why online term plan only because its available at cheaper rate and you can save upto (20-25)% of the premium amount .The information you must provide in the good faith, if you provide information in good faith there will be no problem in settlement of claim.

  59. I appreciate blog owner and all members who have contributed their knowledge and experience. This was first time i have visited blog but gained good insight this will surely help me in deciding good plan for me.

    Its matter of fact, Basic financial literacy is required by every individual before taking decision or else you may get cheated even if you are in financial domain

  60. Hi All,

    Amazing articles and great discussions. Hemant – I really liked your articles.

    I am 26 and My monthly income is around 45K. In New Delhi, unmarried with my dependent mother (Age – 50). Planning to get married within 1-2 years.

    Investments – 10,000/ month in SIPs ( HDFC top 200, Birla Sun Life growth and Fidelity) started in 2010
    Expense – Rent 12K/Month. All other expenses – 10K/Month. I am left with another 12-13K/month and have no idea how to manage and plan. If I take miscellaneous expense of 5K/month. I am still left with around 7-8K

    I think I have the scope to invest another 7-8K in a month(Probably 10K?). Would you advise PPF over all the other investment options.

    I am fit and have no history yet of any disease. I do regular Yoga and meditation. I know its funny to ask but should I buy a mediclaim policy. If yes, what should be the best one to buy for.

    Also, I am confused about which term plan I should buy. I get mixed response for ICICI and Kotak. We had 1 policy for my father with LIC and we had bad experience with them. It took them months to settle the claim. We had to literally run after them.

    Please guide me.

    Regards,
    Rabindra

    • hello Rabindra,
      First, of all you should build an emergency corpus of at least 4-6 months’ income. you could place it in a sweepings savings account that gives you higher interest rate than the usual savings account. If you have a branch of Kotak or Yes bank NEAR you (this is an emergency fund!!) can check for the higher interest rates with them.
      Second, go for a family floater mediclaim of about 3-5 lakhs covering your mother and you. Later as you marry your wife and kids can be added to it and the cover increased.
      Third, Get a critical illness policy/rider for your mother to meet any unforeseeable expenses…
      Fourth, go for an online term plan. As ‘Tinks’ has suggested in in other posts, you may choose between ICICI or Kotak. I bought Met protect, and you can also wait for LIC’s to be launched online plans. I would suggest a cover of about 10x to 20x of your annual income, i.e., 45L to 90L for a term of 35 years (up to 60 years of age).
      The above (2-4) will cost roughly 30-40K per annum. Translate to approximately 2.5-4K pm.
      After that you will be left with about 5-4K pm. To make your portfolio balanced, I would suggest at least 2K pm contribution to PPF, if you are not covered in EPF, in which case you can increase your contribution. This will take care of the stability and debt part of your portfolio as well as retirement planning part to an extent while providing tax benefits.
      The balance can be used to enhance SIP in HDFC Top 200 or a new SIP in ICICI Pru Bluechip fund.
      Hope you get some answers,
      regards

  61. Hello,
    I had many policies which i had purchased during my initial days of carrier. Now i am 36 Yrs old and father of 2 kids. Have surrendered most of policies which i had acquired during my initial days of carrier, except few policies which are from LIC. Now have decided to go for term plan, month ago i decided to go for Iprotect which was from ICICI but by the time i made my mind, policy got discontinued. Me looking at 75L term plan, could you please suggest me which would be better for me. I live in Mumbai and travel with public transport. the existing policies from LIC cover for 20L, these policies are general life insurance policies.

    Thanks in advance for your valuable advice

    • Hi Amarjeet,

      I will Suggest you to go for ICICI i- Care and Kotak Preferred Term Plan & this should be Distributed in 50:25 equally & you must buy this online not through agent because it will be cheapest if u go online, and their claim settlement ratio is also good.

      If possible then you should discontinue LIC policies.I hope you are paying higher premiums .

  62. Hi My age is 30 yrs ,I am enployed in private firm .I do not have any Life insurance till now.I am single ,I was thinking to take pure term polify for25 yrs do you think this is good1.I also want to know which is a good policy for money back or like kind of savings1 so I can save and be ensured.

    Thanks

    P.s I liked your website its very informative.

    Preeti

    • Hi Preeti,

      I will tell you not to mix your investments with insurance.I will tell you to go for Kotak Preferred E term Plan and Birla Sunlife Protector plus plan, distribute it equally it will help in claim settlement.You should buy online it will be less costlier then if you are going to buy it from agent.

  63. Hi,

    I am 39 years old, married with two kids.
    I am planning to take a term insurance with LIC and a Pvt. Insurer for 50 Lakhs each.
    I have the following vaiables to play with
    1. For what term I should be taking the term Policy
    2. what if the job uncertainity forces a person to discontinue premium payments
    3. Is it better to go for Term+endowment policy than going for a pure term policy and take a seperate MF with SIP option
    4. Which Policy provides a less life coverage premium with some decent returns

    • Hi Sanjeev,
      Its good that these days’ people have started showing seriousness towards insurance – it looks Indian financial landscape is changing. You should match your term with retirement age so if you are planning to retire at the age of 54 – take term of 15 years. If the job uncertainty forces a person to discontinue the premium payments policy will be lapsed & there will be no benefits. But as you have chosen 2 policies in case of some severe uncertainty you should discontinue 1 policy & try 2 continue second. It’s better not to mix insurance with investment. It’s better to go with pure term policy and then the remaining amount you can invest in Mutual Fund, Post office, bank deposit etc according to your risk appetite.

  64. Hi Hemant,

    I have decided to take the LIC for 30 years pure term Jeevan Amulya .Please tell me if it is good.Also please tell me if this is applicable to death natural/accident etc I basically want to know what are the exclusions in it.Please suggest.My age is 30 I do not have any other pure term .Pls help me to decide as I want to be covered .Also if LIC is best with claim settlement or there are others which are good enough.

    Pls help.

    Thanks
    Preeti

    • Hi Preeti,

      It’s good that you want to have a term plan & with addition to have accidental plan. I will suggest you to have a term plan from ICICI & Kotak the SA should be divided equally among the two.The reason behind not letting you to buy a term plan from LIC is that you can buy same SA with cheaper rate online and the rest amount you can invest in Mutual Funds through Systematic Investment Plan for your future goals if any..
      The answer regarding your claim settlement I will tell if you provide the information correctly to the company there will be no problem in settlement of claim.
      You can buy accidental policy separately of the same SA which you are having for Term plan from Apollo Munich this will also cost at the cheaper rate if you go online mode.

  65. Thank you so much Mudit for taking out time and answering my questions. I really appreciate your suggestions.

    Best regards,
    Rabindra

  66. Hi Hemantji,
    I am 42 years old and planning to take term insurance plan of 30-50 lakh for maximum possible period. Kindly suggest reliable companies .

    • Hi G P Sharma,

      As you have mentioned that you are 42 yrs old, I will like to suggest you that you should buy a term plan policy which should be close to your retirement age, say as you are now 42 and you want to retire at age 60 then you should take a term plan for 20 Yrs.
      The reliable companies are many but it’s on you how you provide information, if you provide information in good faith there will be no problem for settlement of claim.
      You should buy online term plan & distribute your SA equally in under mentioned Policies :-
      1. ICICI- I protect
      2.Kotak Preferred E-Term Plan.

  67. Namaskar Hemant Ji,
    I am 38 year old unmarried and already I have term Insurance plan of Rs. 25 lakh from LIC, for which I am Paying Rs. 7574 HlY. Table No is 190-33. I took this policy last year. Now I want to cover up myself atleast for Rs. 35 lakh(My annuual income is around 3 lakh Per annum). An Cotak Mahindra Agent suggested me that I should drop LIC policy and buy the Cotak Mahindra Term Plan of RS. 35 Lakh. Premium is between Rs.10,000 to 10,500. He says that LIC is just stealing your hard earn money. Other option he gave me that I should continue LIC policy and buy new policy from Kotak for Rs. 25 lakh and premium is rs. 7967 YLY. It means my overall sum assured will be Rs. 50 lakh. According to my ITR I can cover up myself of Rs. 50 lakh easily.
    Please suggest me should I take policy from Kotak Mahindra/ICICI/HDFC/ANY other pvt com. (premium is cheap) OR I should trust only on LIC ? I want to cover myself atleast for Rs. 35 Lakh

    • Dear Neeraj,
      Its not that you want to cover yourself for the the regular 10x to 12x of your today’s annual income to help your family when you are gone. You have to consider the liabilities that may be there today as well as that may arise in future. Please mention about the following to come to a better understanding of your overall picture:
      1) No. of dependents – parents and children separately.
      2) Age of parents and their health condition/basic medical record.
      3) Age of children and their expected education/marriage expenses in terms of years and amount at present value.
      4) Is your wife working? If not, is she skilled to get an earning if need arises?
      5) Do you have any outstanding liabilities – home loan, personal loan, etc.
      6) Approximate amount and nature of assets.
      Regards.

    • Hi Bhupendra,

      I would like to share if you want term plan then you should go with any of the two policies mentioned below:-
      1. ICICI- I Protect online term plan
      2. Kotak-E Preferred Term plan.
      3. Birla Sunlife Protetor Plus Plan.

      You should distribute you Sum Assured in Any if the two Policies mentioned above because it will help in settlement of claims. & information provided by you should be in utmost good faith.

  69. Dear sir

    I want to a health insurance for me. But i have a diesses called HEMOPHILIA (Bledding disorder) in this case which health plan i can get.

    Thanks

  70. I am planning to take a term plan from HDFC life.25 Years,Rs 50 Lakhs and premium is Rs 22,000.My age is 40 years.

    Is it a gud plan for me.

    • Hi Shah,

      It’s Good that you want to have a Term Plan.
      I will suggest you to have a Term Plan from ICICI i.e. ICICI- I Protect which you must go online and that would cost you around Rs 16000 for SA 50 Lakh & term 25 yrs.

      Remaining amount you can invest in mutual funds through SIP’s.

  71. Hi, I am unable to understand in your article (Simple answer is going for the policy which is having least premium. NO this will be a big mistake. Read a case…) Which one should I take & why, premium having Met Life 5,800 or LIC 15,450? just for an example

    • Hi Diwakar,
      You have understood this article but you want some spoon feeding – idea behind article was to make people aware about the factors they should consider. Even a name is not going to help you – go & do your own research.

  72. hi
    I am 34 yrs old married & having two dependent wife & daughter 3 years old. I have lic term plan for 5 lakhs but it seems to be inadequate, now i want to buy term insurance for 25 lakhs & for 25 years. I am confused with ICICI & Kotak, please advice which is the better.Also advice shall i go for online or offline

    • Hi Sandeep,

      It’s good that you have a term plan from LIC & now you want to have a term plan for 25 lakh for 25 years. You can have any of the two plans both companies are advisable.You can have online policy because it saves (20-25)% of your premiums but you should provide details in utmost good faith.

  73. Hi

    I am 32 years old and currently have a Term Insurance from Birla Sun Life for Rs 50,00,000/- and paying a premium of Rs 10,643/- . Now, I want to increase the cover to 1,00,00,000/-

    Shall I surrender the current policy and purchase a new policy

    Pls advise the best option and insurance company which is the best.

    • Hi Anand,

      As you have mentioned that you have a Birla Sun Life plan & you want to have increase your cover I will like to advice you that Birla sun life is a good term plan and you can continue this plan & for another 50 Laks SA you can have any of the two policies mentioned below:-
      1. ICICI I Care Term Plan
      2. Kotak Preferred E-Term Plan.

      • Thanks a lot for your advise.

        Is this not advisable to surrender the existing plan and take a new plan from Birla Sun life again for a cover of 1,00,00,000/-

        As the premium for 2 policies of 50L would be greater than a single policy of 1,00,00,000/-

        Regards

  74. Hi,

    I am 30.My friend advised in Aviva for 50 Laks term plan for 30 years I need to pay premium of 16450 Rs every year, with returns [return of paid amount only, without interest after 30 years]. Is this advisable plan or can you suggest other good schemes available with more benefits? Do LIC have something same or Aviva right choice?
    Thanks,
    Ram

    • Dear Ram,
      Avoid return of premium plan – go for pure term plan. (which says we will not return any premium in case if you survived)

    • HELLO! MR. RAM
      I AM SUMIT AGARWAL AGENCY MANAGER IN BIRLA SUNLIFE INSURANCE COMPANY.
      BEFORE TAKING ANY INSURANCE PLAN PLEASE CALL ME. I WILL SUGGEST YOU BEST PLANS FOR YOU.
      CONTACT NO.: 8082200000
      BIRLA SUNLIFE INSURANCE FEATURES:
      1. INDIA’S FIRST COMPANY WHO HAS LAUNCHED ULIP’S IN INDIA.
      2. WE HAD HIGHEST CLAIM PASSOUT RATION IN THE HISTORY OF INDIA.
      3. HIGHEST MATURITY BENEFITS IN INDIA. NONE OF THEM WILL PROVIDES YOU THIS KIND OF MATURITY BENEFITS.
      4. LARGEST NETWORK (BRANCHES) IN INDIA AFTER LIC.
      5. FIRST COMPANY IN INDIA WHO HAS LAUNCHED FREE LOOK PERIOD.
      6. POLICY ACCEPTANCE TIME IS 7-10 DAYS ONLY. NO. 1 IN INDIA.
      7. TRUST OF THE BIRLA GROUP

      • Hi Sumit,
        Our readers will be interested in your products – just share what is the basis of this claim “HIGHEST MATURITY BENEFITS IN INDIA. NONE OF THEM WILL PROVIDES YOU THIS KIND OF MATURITY BENEFITS.”

        • Hi Karna,

          I would like to tell you that you should not take any insurance plan for your child.If you want to have any plan either you can start investing in Mutual funds through SIP route for his long term goals i.e. higher education & marriage & if you don’t want to invest through SIP route you can open PPF account for your child as a minor.

  76. Dear All

    I went to LIC branch today to know the surrender value of my jeevan shree policy which I took in 2003 and so far paid 8 premiums of 25372 Rs = 202976.

    I was shocked to know that surrender value is just 127261 Rs.

    Is this believable, have anyone also has such experience ??

    Thanks

    • Hi Navin,
      Most of the people who first time check there surrender values of endowment polices – react like you. But hard fact of life is surrender value of endowment policies are only around 50% or sometime even less. But to me more surprising part is their maturity values – which in most of the cases are not able to beet inflation. If I talk about your policy ‘Jeevan Shree’ – it is still better that other endowment policies. So you can also think of continuing it if this is a small part of your total investments or you are in 20-30% tax slab.

      • thanks Hemant for the response.

        This is what I am planning, please add or correct whenever you feel so.

        1. surrender jeevan shree policy and put this amount i.e. 127261 Rs in FD where I will get 9% yearly = 10,000 Rs yearly, and recover 75,000 Rs in 7 years or so, I think this looks long term plan, but that looks better option to me, please add…

        2. Apollomunich contacted me and offered me 1 crore (for me) plus 50 lac (for my wife) in total 1.5 Cr in 16457 Rs. yearly premium. should I go ahead, this plan looks excellent to me.? I am talking about accidental insurance/policy here.

        3. I have selected kotek for term plan of 50,00,000 Rs for 30 years with premium around 10671 Rs yearly. I will one more policy later on once I have kid and all.

        4. I have medical policy from my company from TATAAIG of 4,00,000 Rs (family – me/wife). should I add anything from my side as well… or this is sufficient ?

        5. another question, is any medical policy cover IVF in india… in US I know few covers but dont know here in India..?

        will wait for you reply.

        Navin Kr.

        • Hi Navin,
          Just replying to your first point – its a awesome way to take final decision on endowment policy.
          Just a small suggestion that you should consider after tax returns.

  77. I am planning to purchase online term plan and have the following questions:
    – It is safe to purchase term plans online?
    – Cost varies a lot between online and offline term plans? Whats the reason for this?
    – Riders are not available in online plans. Any reason for the same?
    – Which plan has maximum claims ratio?

    Any other suggestions

    • Hi Saurabh,
      It’s good that you would like to analyse things before buying the product – most of the people do other way round. One should buy online policy if he is able to analyse his insurance requirement & his family members are ready to go directly to insurance companies in case of claim. Yes – it is safe to buy term plans online both as an online transaction and as a product. Cost is due to some changes in product feature, policies are provided in only top cities where quality of life is better in comparison to averages & some savings on agent’s commission. I believe companies would like to give to give this as a vanilla product so that people don’t get confused with the variants. But still few online insurance policies have few basic riders. If you talk about all term plans LIC is having best claim settlement ratio but it is not providing online term plan – so second best is ICICI.

  78. I want an advice.
    I have Lic policies/ jeevan anand Ts.50000/- premium
    , Money back., Premium amount Total id 180000/- of all lic policies
    Life cover of 25 lacs
    Pension pLAN rS.10000/-
    I am planning for surrendering them all and going in for Term Plan now Pl. advice I am 37 years old, 2 daughters 8 yers and 4 years.

    • Hi Sonil,
      As you have lot of these policies & a good premium going in them – you should hire someone to analyse these policies.

  79. Shall we disclose our parent medical history while purchasing Term Plan.For example my mother has expired due to some critical alignment.

    Regards
    Shah

    • Hi shah,

      Its good to hear that you want to have a term plan for you.
      I will suggest you that you should disclose your medical history at the time of purchasing a term plan.It will benefit your family at the time of claim if something happens to you .

  80. hi
    I am confused with ICICI, Kotak and Aviva i life ,please advice which is the better? it seems Aviva i life is very much cheaper than icici term plan, is it advisable to go for Aviva?
    I am 34 yrs old married & having two dependent wife & daughter 3 years old. I have lic term plan for 5 lakhs but it seems to be inadequate, now i want to buy term insurance for 25 lakhs & for 25 years..Also advice shall i go for online or offline

    • Hi Sandeep,
      I think this will be one of the best financial decisions you have taken. Taking term insurance for family security cannot be ignored at any cost. You have not mentioned regarding your income but looking at your age you can take sum assured equal to 12 times of your income. You can go for online term plan if you think your family will be able to follow up for the claims. But you should not select term plan on the basis of premiums. Definitely Aviva is much cheaper in comparisons of any term plan but I will still prefer ICICI or Kotak over it.

  81. I am 49. I have 2 policies . LIC Jeevan Anand for 10 lakhs which would be maturing 5 years from now. LIC Term Insurance for 25 lakhs ( tenure upto 2021).

    I have a hypothetical question. If I were to die 3 years hence, would my family receive 35 lakhs from LIC (that is both from Jeevan Anand and Term Insurance ) or would they receive just the higher of the two ( 25 lakhs)?

    • Hi Happy,
      It’s good that you have a term plan. In LIC Jeevan Anand you will have the benefit of Sum Assured plus vested bonuses is payable on the death to the nominee in a lump sum. In LIC Term Plan, in case of unfortunate death of the Life Assured during the term of the policy – Sum Assured is payable, provided the policy is kept in force, there is no maturity benefits. Regarding your query your family will get benefits from both insurance policies. The point that you are trying to hint happens in medical insurance if you take policy from 2 different insurers.

  82. Sir, I want to buy a term insurance. i liked the idea of buying two insurance instead of one. my plans are as follows : my DOB : 11/06/1978
    My salary : Rs. 3 lacks / annum.

    Co. SA Term Premium
    LIC 5 lacks 25 2,559
    Kotak 25 lacks 30 4550
    ICICI 20 lacks 30 5,405
    Total 50lacks 12,514

    Please suggest if its ok or any changes to be done? should i go 3 policies or two. (i selected LIC because of govt. isurance co. for which i am paying more premium.)

    my mother is having high BP. 3 years back when i checked my BP, Dr. said me that i also have BP (Not high) will this effect my premium. and should i disclouse the same to the insurer. if i dont will if effect my insurance. i heard after 3 years if policy period, if a person dies due to any reason the policy does get reject? is it true.

    • Hi Dhanesh,
      I will appreciate you as you are looking for a term plan. I will suggest you to distribute it into two Policies.
      I will suggest you to give your insurer proper details that will help you in settlement of claim. You should disclose your medical history to the insurer, this will make sure that you claim does not get rejected.

  83. Hi,

    I would like to buy a term plan and have enquired with Kotak recently based on the above comments from Hemant. They gave me below information:

    1. Riders – Accidental death, Permanent disbility and critical illness (costiest) are not available if I buy it online. Please advise if these are critical riders which someone must take or should I buy just pure term insurance (without riders)? I believe buying a term plan online is always cheaper but would like to take opinion if I should compromise with the riders for that option?

    2. Kotak also offers step-up option which guarantees you additional insurance cover at certain important stages in your life in a costeffective
    and hassle free manner (Marriage, home loan, birth of a child etc.). I plan to buy a home in near future. Should I take this option? Any advise please.

    3. Should I take two policies of 50Lacs each or one policy of 1 crore? Which one is better option?
    Thanks, Naveen

    • Hi Naveen,
      Buying Term plan Is a great financial decision & shows how responsible a person is. I will suggest you to have pure term plan without riders and this will take care of sudden death. Yes you are correct online term plans are cheaper in comparison with offline term plans – there is no need to buy riders, for accidental policy you can buy a separate policy. Prima-facie step-up looks good but actually with time clients net worth increases & insurance requirement decreases. When you decide to buy a home you can take a separate policy depending on the tenure. I will suggest you to distribute your policies into two that will help in claim settlement & it will also take care of your second part of the question that you mentioned about Marriage, home loan, birth of a child etc.

  84. Hi Hemant,

    I am new to this site.
    I am thinking to buy a term insurance plan with SA of 50 Lacs and Acc Death Ben Rider of equal ammount.
    I have thought of buying SBI Life and ICICI Pru- iCare products with 25 Lacs in each one.
    Could you share your opinion about my choices and suggestiuons if you would like to share?
    I am bit confused about SBI Life because its claim settlement ratio is low.
    I see very old blogs here so need your fresh review. 🙂
    Please share your thoughts.

    Thanks…

  85. Hi Hemant,

    My age is 25 working in infosys , salary 3.5 lacs per annum, though company has an insurence on me but I want to have my own insurence plan as I can change the company or for various reason ,what can be the best insurence plan for me, many of my friend has taken different policies of insurence but I want to know clearly about what should be the best for me.
    1. Is it wrong to expect returns of your insurence policy??
    2. what wold be best
    a) having single policy with life cover and guareenteed returns both Or
    b) two different policies one with life cover and another for guareenteed
    returns.
    3. what will be best for me at this age and salary,how much should I invest or insure for apprx 30 yrs.
    4. Please suggest company also.

    • Hi Rakesh,
      I have already shared my views through this article & replying comments. Will suggest you to hire someone to help you in understanding insurance & choosing right policy.

  86. Hi Hemant,

    This article is really good. I have just decided to split my term insurance into two.

    Regards
    DJ

  87. Hi Hemanth,

    Could you please suggest me regarding term policy
    Recently i have taken Aviva I life term policy online with SA of 5000000 for 32 years
    Is it right one or not?
    Please give reply

  88. Hello Hemant

    I am 33 yr married with 4month daughter. I am fit and no bad habbits.I have shortlisted following term plans
    Aviva i life 50 lacs/35years Prem 5005/Annum
    ICICI i care 25 lacs/30years Prem 7004/Annum
    So total cover of 75lacs for 30years 12009/annum i.e. for merely 1000/month..

    Please suggest

    Regards,
    Arun

  89. Dear Hemant, Thanks a lot for all your excellent and honest guidance so far you gave to this forum. I have couple of questions , suggestions and i believe you find time to respond to this. I apologize for posting so much but I think I don’t have any other option. I strongly feel that if I really get responses for these questions then I plan to prepare one consolidated document covering all the core points in this article and plan to circulate to our readers after your review.

    Q1) Please see the link and comment about FAIR ratings. Is it worth to trust this ?

    link1

    Q2) Which is the most trusted site / ratings that we need to look for Insurance related products ?

    Q3) Please provide your view about this article. I feel extremely frustrated after reading this. It seems I am also one among the JEEVAN ANAND fools club.

    link2

    Q4) Does LIC offers any Online Term Plan. Where i can do the comparison of term insurances and choose the best one ?

    Q5) Can we transfer / convert the Jeevan Anand to another term insurance or to any other policy within the same LIC or to another company ?

    Q6) Does any one of the insurance companies provide a report like ‘what-if I claim – status report’. i.e. i need to know at periodic intervals from a insurance company in writing as a report saying my policy have all the per-requisite details as of that date and they have all the basic information in place so that if a claim happens company will NOT give any lame excuses at the time of claim settlement. Hope i am communicating clearly and let me know how to get this.

    Q7) It seems the premium for the LIC Term Insurance seems to be very expensive than that of private players. How it is possible to have different or huge variations in the premium for the same set of features ? Does this mean are we missing to look out anything ? Please share some light on this.

    Q8) Finally i strongly feel we should discuss this topic along with Health Insurance and riders so that this becomes complete from the Customer Protection sense. I believe the three most critical riders are Accidental death, Permanent disability and critical illness coverage.
    a) Per your response to Naveen that term insurance need not cover accidental death. How come the term insurance does not cover the Accidental death ? It is really surprising to me. The whole idea of term insurance is to cover the death. It could be natural or thorough different external events like accidents.
    b) Next why the mode of taking the insurance plays a role here. Again irrespective of whether the customers are taking it online or offline the insurance company is going to get the premiums and then why the hell there is some difference among the features they are offering ? It looks like very ill logical. Please correct me if I am wrong.
    c) Similarly Permanent disability should be part of basic term insurance. Isn’t ?
    d) I think coverage of critical illness should be part of Health Insurance. Kindly throw some light or refer your blogs on this topic tooKindly advise best providers for the above mentioned riders too. . Thanks again.

    Cheers,
    Sowmi

    • Hi Mr Sowmi,
      Query is too long – will suggest you to hire some financial planner at your place to explain you all this. If you have some question be specific.

  90. Dear Hemanth, Here with I am summarizing my broad requirements and also few clarifications related to this. Kindly provide your responses in-line so that I can use this for my future reference too. I would like to do my internal study as much as possible and then conclude the final steps. It would be of immense help once you clarify the below ones and I think I am mostly done and may come back to you with just few more queries.

    1) Need to identify the best rated Term Insurance ?
    2) Need to identify the ‘must have’ riders in Term Insurance? I believe these are all the most popular ones.
    a) Accident benefits
    b) Disability Benefit
    c) Critical Illness benefit
    d) Waiver of Premium
    e) Income loss cover
    3) Need to know the correct Sum Assured for me ? Is there is any tool available for this ?
    4) I believe while determining the correct Sum Assured we need to consider all the current loans , future expenses like children education , marriage plus 3 to 5 times of current annual expense of the family. What do you think ?
    5) I think we must also consider taking decreasing term plans based on above important events like children education / marriages or closure of loans etc. Please list out these types of Term Insurances too and also the best rated ones.
    6) Instead of taking one single BIG term insurance why can’t we split and take it as two for the below reasons ? What do you think about this? It seems logical to me.

    7) Also instead of taking (static / depreciating) term loans what are the pros and cons of taking the mortgage cum insurance loan ? By this way the depreciating part will be taken care automatically ? What do you think ?
    8) Which is the most trusted site / ratings that we need to look for Insurance related products ?
    9) I believe all the Term insurance covers accidental death. Then why there is a accidental benefit rider ? It is really surprising to me. The whole idea of term insurance is to cover the death. It could be natural or through different external events like accidents etc.
    10) Why the mode of taking the insurance plays a role in deciding the premium and riders offered on the scheme. Taking online policy is equal to taking the policy from the company directly from it’s payroll employees . Isn’t ? Again irrespective of whether the customers are taking it online or offline the insurance company is going to get the premiums and then why there is some difference among the features they are offering ? It looks like very ill logical. Please correct me if I am wrong.
    11) Similarly Permanent disability should be part of basic term insurance by default. Isn’t ? why companies are treating it as a rider.
    12) I think coverage of critical illness should be basic part of Health Insurance. Isn’t ?. Why it s offered as a rider ?
    13) What are the pros and cons of single and regular premium payments methods ?
    14) I believe we need to the below items from the insurance company once the policy is issued. Hope you agree this is a good practice to follow.. Please add if any.
    14.1Need to get the Medical Reports from your advisor and keep the copy of that with policy Bond.Company doesn’t even charge from you for this only you need to give a request letter for the same.
    14.2Policy bond must come with any photocopies of your Form Filled so that means the company can’t play any game with you.

    15) Need to identify the best rated Health Insurance ?
    16) Need to identify the ‘must have’ riders in Health Insurance?
    17) Need to know the correct Health Insurance amount for me ? Is there is any tool available for this ?
    18) Need to identify the Health Insurance product which has large insurance cover i.e. cost effective OPD which covers dental treatment etc. (By the way please let me know the definition of OPD and I picked from the ET article !!!).
    19) Need to identify the best rated Motor Insurance and also the ‘must have’ riders we need to have ? I took a rider ‘bumper-to-bumper cover’ last year in my last motor insurance ? Is it worth to take this ? Any Suggestions ?
    20) From a Customer perspective , What are the pro active steps we need to take to ensure hassle free claim processing ? Ex : what are core information we need submit to the insurance company voluntarily.
    21) Will there be any process available to ensure our policies are updated with up to date information ? In other words , Does any one of the insurance companies provide a report like ‘what-if I claim now – status report’. i.e. t periodic intervals I would like to receive a report from the insurance company confirming that my policy have all the prerequisite details as of that report date and there won’t be any issue involves when the claim happens.

    Thanks and Regards,
    Sowmi

    • Hi Sowmi,
      Your queries are too long & I think I need to write 2-3 articles to explain all this. If you have something specific feel free to ask.

  91. Dear Hemant,

    I had a quick question for you.

    If I decide to split my Term Insurance between 3 companies e.g. LIC, HDFC and Aviva and when the time for claim comes, assuming that say one of the above companies accepts my claim and other 2 reject it:
    1) Can this scenario actually happen?
    2) If Yes, then can I use the acceptance of claim from one company and get the other 2 companies accept the originally rejected claim?

    Would appreciate if you could let me know at your earliest.

    Regards,
    Manoj

    • Hi Manoj,
      My answer to both the question is yes but 3 policies will be too much. In you second question your nominees may need to approach ombudsman.

  92. Hi Hemant,

    would you recommend to get medical check up done by Insurance company before buying Term plan?
    Doing this would reduce claim rejection chance in future?

    Thanks,

    Omkar

  93. Pl. let me know the best term plan for me. The details are as follows:
    Age 46, Non- smoker Non Drinker, Healthy
    Insurance cover: 2 Cr.
    Duration 20 yrs
    Family of 2 + 2.

    Pl. give me your recommendation also regarding:
    Accident death Benifit
    Critical Illnes Benifit

    Which are the prefered Insurance plan and company.
    How many plans I should take.

    Can I have your contact details.

    Regards,

    Ajay

    • Hi Ajay,
      Will suggest to hire some financial planner in your city to make you suggestions according to your requirement.

  94. my DOB is 29.04.1979 and want to purchase the term insurance for 25 yr at 25 lacs
    insurance claimed to my family any accidental or natural death so please give me advised to me
    what type of policy purchase

    • Hi Bhagirath Bhati,

      I will appreciate that you want to have a term plan as well accidental policy.
      I will suggest you to have apollo munich for accidental plan & You should distribute your SA of Rs 25 Lakh in ICICI I-Care & Kotak Preferred in 10:15.
      I will suggest you to give all the details to the insurer in utmost good faith.

  95. Hi, We enjoyed your articles. It gives really good info and keep us updating.
    Well basically I did my MBA in Marketing and in 2010 i joined as a Financial Adviser. I am learning about all this. In Insurance i am with LIC.
    1. I want to know why LIC’s term Plan is not economically cheap or they charge so high premium compare to other companies.
    2. When i recommend LIC’s Term Plan clients says we will prefer to buy 2 policies of 2 different companies rather than buying 1 policy in cost of 2. I am not able to give answer.
    3. Apart from term insurance if we take any policy of LIC and compare to Private with same policy LIC is charging high Premium and returns are low.
    4. People says now days LIC is charging high premium just because of their BRAND.
    Please answer this question and also send answers on my mail id.
    Thank You.

  96. Hi, We enjoyed your articles. It gives really good info and keep us updating.
    Well basically I did my MBA in Marketing and in 2010 i joined as a Financial Adviser. I am learning about all this. In Insurance i am with LIC.
    1. I want to know why LIC’s term Plan is not economically cheap or they charge so high premium compare to other companies.
    2. When i recommend LIC’s Term Plan clients says we will prefer to buy 2 policies of 2 different companies rather than buying 1 policy in cost of 2. I am not able to give answer.
    3. Apart from term insurance if we take any policy of LIC and compare to Private with same policy LIC is charging high Premium and returns are low.
    4. People says now days LIC is charging high premium just because of their BRAND.
    Please answer this question and also send answers on my mail id.
    Thank You.
    Jayesh Bora +91 9922400000

  97. Dear Hemant,

    your articles and advice are very useful. I am 36 years old and have taken 4 endowment policies from LIC at different stages of my life. The total of the sum assured in all these policies is about 20 lakhs. Do you recommend a term plan for me ?

    • Hi Srinivas,

      I will appreciate if you wish to buy a term plan. There is a difference between term plan & Endowment Plans. In Term Plan if the person dies his family members will get the claim but if the term finishes he wont get anything.
      In Endowments plan is a life insurance contract designed to pay a lump sum after a specified term (on its ‘maturity’) or on death.
      So,there is a huge difference between the both.

  98. Hi Hemant,

    Really super post and the reply by you on each query. My query is HDFC life has just launched its online term plan. Please suggest me if i opt HDFC life term plan is better than other company. Need comparision in terms of claim settlement, company reputation and premium.

  100. Dear Sir

    I am 34 years. I got term plan (10 lacs+10 lacs accidental+10 lacs permanent disability) of SBI Life premium of 6200/-

    Is this good plan ?

    And can i take another term plan ?

    Pls reply

    Thanks

  101. Hello Hemant,
    I would like to know Aegon Religare Life Insurance company is trust-able to go for term insurance?

    Aski

    • Hi Partha,
      Single premium insurance policy is not suggested – be it term plan or for investment purpose.

  103. hello hemant,
    Is HDFC Life Click 2 protect is covering Accident benefits, Disability Benefit
    Critical Illness benefit?

    Please reply .

    krish

  104. Dear Hemant / TFL Readers,

    I searched the archives but couldn’t able find an article talking about pros and cons of taking ‘Term Insurance Vs Loan cover term insurance (liability Protection) policies’. Please provide your thought / feedback on this. I just came across one article related in this topic but want to hear from you too.

    Cheers
    Sowmi

  105. Hi Hemant,

    I bought Jeevan amulya from LIC last year for sum assured Rs.3500000. The annual premium mentioned in the policy document is Rs.14595 ( with health extra – for deranged lipid profile and high BP). After approx 7-8 mths i recieved a letter from LIC saying that due to some technical error my premium was miscalculated and the same has been increased by Rs 4760 and the same has to be paid immediately to enforce the policy fully. I wish to know if there has been no misrepresentation of facts by me at any time can the insurer increase my premium arbitrarily. I launched a complaint with the corporation regarding the same by registered post but have not received any reply from them. My premium is due this month. Also their medical test seems to be rigged as i repeated BP measurements have been normal before and after their medical test without any medications.I am a doctor myself.Can I drag LIC to the consumer forum? What should i do?

    • Dear Dr Amber,
      Insurance contracts come under the contract act and therefore when the policy was issued, all the conditions were fulfilled and accepted by both parties before the issue of the policy. The stamp duty has also been paid and the insurance document is now a contract. Now the corporation cannot claim the additional charges unless it is a breach of any condition from your side.
      You can take up this matter at higher levels and should not pay the additional premium claimed. A simple letter of protest to the company and filing a complaint on the same with the ombudsman after 1 month would do.
      Please keep me updated on the process & if you need some help feel free to leave a message here.

        • It has been 3months since i wrote a letter of protest to LIC with no reply from them till date. Could u please guide me on how to file a complaint with insurance ombudsman and can it be done online. I tried the IRDA website but could not get any specific information.

            • Today I was informed orally that the LIC has cancelled my policy and offering me a refund. As a part of letter of protest that i had sent in Nov 2011 I had inadvertently mentioned that if LIC could not service the policy, they should refund me the amount with interest as a last resort. The LIC chose to ignore other facts that were raised in the letter. In subsequent letters to CRM and IRDA I had not asked for the refund. Please tell me can anything be done about this. I can send the full copy of the letter by email for your perusal if required.

  106. Thank you for the details. We have a corporate loan from the PSU BANKS, can they attach the LIC TERM PLAN/jeevan anand plan for their repayment.?

    • Hi Saurav,
      I don’t thin they will attach as liability is on company & not individual. But you as a individual can buy a term plan – key-man policy is the other option that was very popular earlier due to tax benefits.

      • Hello Heman,

        Thank you. if the nominee happens to be a gaurantor in that case what would happen to the money received under term plan. Does married women property act have any role to play?

        • Hi Saurav,
          Married Women Property act gives the right protection in resolving any kind of disputes. Any insurance policy registered under MWP in the name of husband for the benefit of wife, children or both, is deemed to be a trust and cannot be touched by any creditor. Also, the husband does not have any control on the proceeds and neither it form part of his estate. This make sure that benefit accrues to the spouse or children, whatever the circumstances.

  107. Dear Hemant,

    I wanted to know when lic is planing to launch its online policy. and what difference will it be with its own term insurance and other companies policy.

    should i wait for the LIC policy to come…

    Please advise..

    Durgesh Shetty

    • Hi Durgesh,
      If you are die hard fan of LIC you can wait – it may have lower premiums in comparison of its existing term plans.
      But delaying decision to buy term plan is a very big risk.

  108. Hi Hemant,
    Could you tell me how does PLI (postal life insurance)term plan Suraksha compares with the above mentioned plans.
    Am in central govt so am eligible for PLI, but am confused whether that will be the right thing to do?
    Looking forward to your response.

    • Hi Kapil,
      PLI is again an investment related insurance policy – I am doing some research on this product, will soon share it in a shape of article. Keep visiting TFL.

      • ok thanks hemant…am waiting for your article…
        In PLI also there are different products like santosh(endowment)suraksha(term plan) and the likes…

  109. Dear hemant,
    Iam 30 years.My monthly income is 10,000.Im married.Iam planning to buy term policy.please tell me which one will be cheap and best for me.

  110. interesting post..
    one should not hide any thing while filling the form.. thats true..
    Hemant which plan according to you is the best term plan?
    please advice..

  111. Hi Hemanth,

    Thank you for starting this blog. I was planning for Insurance for Children Career and Term Plan (which the LIC) agent never talked about. But after going through the interactions here, I have learned a lot about the importance of Term Plan. Also, I was thinking in terms of purchasing a single premium policy from SBI which you have advised not to opt for. My details are as follows:
    Smoker: Yes
    Age: 35 Years
    Annual Income: 4 Lakhs
    Policy Term: 30 Years
    Dependants: Father, Mother, 2 Children (both Sons)
    Need Sum Assurance: 45 Lakhs to 50 Lakhs
    Companies Shortlisted
    A.HDFC Click2Protect (purely after reading the interactions on this blog)
    B.SBI (Protection from Govt based Institution)
    C.ICICI (chose ICICI for history of health insurance claim settlement for my mother)

    Further Shortlisted ICICI and SBI (50% Each)

    Would appreciate your views on shortlisted Companies. Thanks in advance.

    Hope there’s someone who has grilled Children Education Plans like this.

  112. Hi Hement,
    Nice to see such a great discussion.I am 31 yr old and I have a term plan (icici pure protect elite)of 50 lacs + ADB and permanent disability riders with a premium of 12160/-.My annual income is aprox 8 lacs.
    My liabilities include
    1.home loan of 20 lacs
    2. one car loan of 4 lacs.
    3. Wife mother and two kids as dependent
    Now my questions are:

    1.if I want to switch to HDFC click to protect for 1 crore for nearly equal premium of 12000/- ,is it a good idea.
    2.Or like you mentioned I should go for 50 lacs from HDFC click to protect,keeping the current term plan intact.Actually riders are also costing me nearly 2000/- per year,which was a wrong decison three year back.
    3.Are there more chances of claim refusal in online as there are no medical check-up.There might be chances that one of my parent having some illness that i dont know at the time of policy taking and that can creat problem at the time of settelment citing i didnt disclose this.

    • Hi Hari,
      Don’t discontinue or try to switch your existing policy. You should buy additional policy – HDFC click to protect looks a good choice.
      Disclosures are always to the best of your knowledge – so nothing to worry about.

  113. hi hemant
    plz tel me im taking a term plan from agon religear for 50lack i will continue
    with same r stitch to another term insurence todey my age 34(23/04/1977)year

    • Hi Vishwa,
      If you have already taken the Aigon term plan – you can continue it else you can also check other options.

  115. hi i am considering iTerm plan of 1 crore from ageon-raligare upto the age of 75 yrs. i have two reservations regarding ageon-religare.

    1. how trustworhthy this company is? what if the company shut down or closes its operations in india as 30 yrs is too long to predict anything. what would happen with existing policies in that case?

    2. suppose they sell 100 term policies for 1 crore each for people with premium term up to the age of 75 yrs(maximum term in this product) and lets assume the average age of all the 100 customer is 30 yrs. given the life expentancy in india 80% people will get death maturity for sure(most probably). on an average every people will pay 40 premium of 10000/- INR i.e 40 lacs. how is this possible that they will pay such a huge amount of sum assured to that many people ?

    Please give some advice on it ?

    Regards,
    deepak

    • Hi Deepak,
      You don’t need to worry about first point but claim settlement ratios are important – which are bit low for aigon right now.
      Coming to second point – insurance products are designed after considering all the points that you have mentioned & many more.
      So go ahead & guy a term plan asap – aigon or some other company is your choice.

  116. Hi Hemant,

    No doubt the blog is awesome and the comments / questions and answers are really eye openers.

    I want to know,
    If a person dies while his term plan is active, what will be the process to get the claim..?
    As most of the term plans today are sold online will there be any difference in process while claiming..?
    will the process be same for all the brands or it will differ for different companies..?

    Thanks
    Bharat

    • Thanks Bharat for appreciating our effort.
      Claim settlement process is similar in most of the life insurance companies. Nominee have to intimate death in nearest branch of insurance company, take claim settlement form – submit it with required documents including death certificate & original policy.
      Process is same in case of online policies.

  117. Hi Hemant,

    I have one basic question, forgive me if it is silly one.

    Suppose a person has taken two term policies of 25 lacs each from two different insurance companies,

    1. Can the nominee make a claim from both the insurers?( lets say in case of untimely death)
    2. Are both the companies liable to pay ? i.e. 50 lacs. (assuming there is no issue with medical reports)

    Thanks,
    Krishna

    • Hi Mr Krishna,
      Both the questions are very valid & lot of people have already asked similar questions.
      Answer to both questions in YES.

  118. hi hemant,

    thax for your reply.

    but ageon-religare shows in its wesite that 1 out of 5 claims made till date is rejected. that too becoz of non furnishing some medical details in proposal forms.

    what your advice about the rejection ratio of ageon in long run as it is comparetivly newer to most other insurance companies in india. i like the features in this policy the most i.e. term plan upto 75 yrs of age, no other company is offering this as of now.

    regards,
    Deepak arya

    • Hi Deepak,
      You can go for it but making future predictions of claim settlement is impossible. I also believe that any insurance company will not deny any genuine claims – same applies with aigon or any other company.
      But I don’t understand why you need insurance till age of 75 – term plans are not lottery tickets, you should take term till the age of your planned retirement.

      • Hi beniwal,

        thank u for addressing lot of my requests. u r doing a great job. i am having a problem regarding my term plan. i hope you will give some advice on that.

        i bought a term plan of 40 lacs from birla sun life. at that time wrong DOB was entered by mistake. i got it corrected but due to which premium increased and worse thing is they didn’t inform me about it and finally policy got lapse. i came to know about it when i went to pay next premium on due date. then i asked them to restart the policy. they gave me a form named certificate of insurability (COI) to fillup. there was a question “Have you gone to any check up in the past”. i filled yes to that question as i went to full body check up sponsed by my employer. but my company didn’t give reports to me. Birla Sun Life want as what checkup i did and reports. i have left that company now so i can’t take those reports. so i called up customer care and now they are saying that fill up another form and answere no to that question. my only concerm about this is would it have any impact on claim if any unforseen thing happen. as they may say that there is was mismatch in COI forms i filled.

        Kindly give some advice on this.

        Regards,
        deepak Arya

        • Hi Deepak,
          Have you tried getting this report from the hospital which did the checkup or talked to your ex-HR dept, they may help. You can also ask Birla People to do a complete health check up – you can give them an option that if they want you can pay for it.
          If nothing works its better to buy insurance from some other insurer rather than giving wrong information. In case if you need further clarification pls feel free to add.

    • Deepak,
      Recently I bought Birla Sun Life Protector term plan and
      it is also up to 75 years of my age.

  119. Hi Hemanth,

    Thank you for your valuable reply. I have a question, why is that you have asked in the above query, to avoid for Single Premium for any kind of insurance. I am a Small Business Entrepreneur, there is always uncertainty in business, is it not advisable for people like me to invest in one go (be it term plan or any other insurance). I have always wished that the Insurance Companies come up with more and more single premium policies, so that people like me can invest in them and forget about it for the next 20 or 30 years. It will make us free from paying annually.

    • Hi Mahesh,
      I never suggest mixing insurance with investments – if you are conservative investor better go for bank FDs & Post Office Schemes.

  120. Dear Hemantji

    I am confused in buying the term plan. I am 38 years old and has 3 dependents and want to buy 50 lacs assurance for 30 years. Not sure if go woith LIC or HDFC. I am not able to find out the LIC online term plan, so that I can calculate. with HDFC 50 lacs for 25 years the premium is coming out to be 15000/- per annum. As per them there claim settlment ratio is 94%.

    your help will be of much use to me.

    regards,
    Gopal Krishanan

  121. Dear Hemanth,

    I am 28yrs old and planning to take a TERM plan from SBI Life for 1cr. The prem was 17,300/- yearly. Could you please suggest me to go ahead with SBI life for 1cr or opt for LIC Amulya Jeevan?

  122. Hi Hemant,

    Really appreciate your and other bloggers’ efforts to discuss the whole issue of term plans in detail. It’s been an eye opener for me to not focus on the amount of premium but the ability and the willingness of the insurer to settle the claim if the need were to arise.

    Based on the discussion, I have decided to go in for a 50 lakh term cover to be divided equally between LIC and HDFC.

    Thanks

  123. Hi Hemant Beniwal,

    I would like to see a reply against each of the below:
    All are LIC Plans:
    Jeevan Anand: The plan intends to pay the SA to the family even after the natural death of the insured person at the old age.
    How does a PPF + term plan achieve this? A term plan has to be renewed ever year and as far as I know at old age no company would insure the person.
    2- Jeevan Ankur or any other child plan with premium waiver – A term plan will give a lump sum amount. What if you want to ensure that the child gets the payment for his educational needs during his graduation /post graduation years. How can a PPF and term plan take care of this ?

    Jeevan Saral is expected to provide returns above 9%. How does a PPF + term plan help here?

    • Hi SSC,
      You are right from where you are looking at the situation but I think you need to understand couple of things.
      First why you need death benefit after retirement – insurance is not a lottery ticket; it should be taken to replace future income of bread winner. If he is not earning anything we don’t need any income protection or insurance in other words.
      Second this is a big myth that any endowment plans including Jeevan Saral will deliver 9% returns, even 7% return on these products is unrealistic.
      Third Education cost is increasing at the rate of 10-12% & if you are depending on policies like Jeevan Ankur there is a good probability that kids will not be having sufficient funds. There is very low return & even insurance benefit is negligible. It’s not the time to get emotional think cool headed & take wise decision. Combining PPF with a term plan is a great choice for conservative people.

  124. Dear Hemant,

    Nice blog!

    I am 27 yrs, having dependent mother – father. I was thinking to buy only LIC Amulya Jeevan, but After all the discussion, I think I shlould move with 50% in LIC (As indian mentality, it is very difficult to have clean sweep for LIC) and 50% in any other good private.

    Pls suggest me, whether I am doing right or wrong and also suggest good private insurance company and product.

    Thanks in advance

    • Hi Sumit,
      You rightly said “As Indian mentality, it is very difficult to have clean sweep for LIC” but end of the day we have to understand that term plan is a simple product – you need to pay some yearly premium & if something happens to you insurer will pay sum assured. It’s true that LIC is having best claim settlement ratio but premium is twice in comparison to most of the insurance companies. Earlier even other companies were charging higher premiums but in last 2-3 years they have reduced it substantially but LIC don’t want to compete in this product. But still if you would like to go for LIC – dividing sum assured in 2 policies is a good option.

  125. ANIL DSOUZA

    Hi, HEMANTH

    I want to take 2 term plan for 50 lacs in this 1 plan for 10 years and 2 one for 15 years can u suggest me some good i term plans please i will look forward for your suggestion.
    Thanking you

  126. Hi Hemanth,

    Thanks for posting the nice article about Term Insurance. As I am novice, please clarify my silly doubts.

    1. Let’s say if I choose a term policy for 25 years, I guess the premium amount for entire policy period (25 Years) would be the same amount. (unlike the health insurance policy). Please correct me If I am wrong.

    2. Is Term insurance available only for specific time period (20, 25, 30 years) or can I opt for my entire life time.

    Thanks in advance. 🙂

    • Hi Hari,
      Thanks for appreciating our effort. 🙂
      You are absolutely right in your first point; premium of term plan will not increase with age or health changes. This is one of the reasons that we keep suggesting that term plan should be taken as early as possible because with every passing year premium will increase.
      Few of the insurance companies provides for the specific period, normally in multiple of 5 years but you will also find companies where you can choose your exact term but some maximum entry & maturity age.

  127. hello sir,
    i am 31 yer old man and i want to buy term insurance of rs. 50 to 80 laks, i m non smoker,non drinker , vegetarin man my hight is 5-8, nd my weight is aound 84 kg, plz suggest me which is best way to buy it from online (though net) or of line(through agent).

    while buying a policy which terms i have to read

  128. Dear Hemant,
    I have become a great friend of your articles. They are just amazing & eye opener.
    Please tell me how is eprotect term plan of Bharti AXA? They offering insurance of 1 crore for just Rs. 8300.

    Regards,

    Chinmay

    • Hi Chinmay,
      Premium is not the only criteria of taking term plan – I have mentioned this in the post itself.

  129. Hi Hemanth,
    I’m 29yrs old,married and annual income is 65000,I want to buy a term plan,but problem is having diabetes.So which policy is better for me?LIC or any other? Or combined ? 🙂

  130. Hi Hemanth Ji,
    I Am 25 Years Old And Just Thought To Insure MySelf For Rs. 1 Crore. Previously I Was Thinking Of Going Into Bajaj Allianz InvestGain Platinum Plan In Which I Was Getting Sum Assured (Maturity) of Rs.25 Lacs and Sum Assured (In Case of Death) as Rs.1 Crore (i.e 4 Times The Guaranteed Sum Assured)
    But After Checking The Term Plans Of Private Companies And LIC, I Was In Search Of Some Advisor.
    Kindly Guide Me That
    1) Should I Take Bajaj Allianz Invest Gain Platinum Plan For 25 Lacs Guaranteed Sum Assured Which Automatically Gives Me Cover of Rs. 1 Crore @ Rs.60085/-
    2) Should I Take Term Insurance At Rs.6000-8000 From Private Companies??
    3) Should I Take Term Insurance At Rs.29400/- From LIC (Amulya Jeevan)??
    Or Suggest Some Best Option!!
    The Only Reason Why I Am Thinking Of Invest Gain Is That Its Giving Me The Death Cover I Need And Also Its Assuring Us Maturity Benefit. Please Suggest!!!! Thanks In Advance!!

    • Hi Hemant Ji,
      One More Query. (1) Shall I Go For Private Company Term Insurance With Cover of 1 Crore Or (2) Shall I Go For 50 Lacs Cover With Private Company and 50 Lacs With LIC??

  131. Hi Hemant,

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts on term plan and for providing good knowledge for newbies like us :).

    I need your suggestion in order to chose correct term plan:

    I am 26 year old, married,working as consultant in MNC, my baby is currently 5 months old.
    Me and my spouse have jointly taken loan of Rs. 48,00,000 from SBI.

    My aim: If anything happens to me or my husband, I dont want my family to suffer due to loan pressure.

    1> Which term plan u think best suits my requirements? I want to go for term plan which covers all types of deaths as well as has good claim settlement records.(currently 90% of my salary goes in Loan EMI. Hence Good plan with good premium rates really matters!)

    2> Do you think both me and my husband should take individual term plans?

    3> Based on plicybazaar.com site, Aviva and Aegon Religare have lowest premiums but again another important factor is claim settlement. Do you have idea about SBI’s term plans.

    Regards,
    Nilima

    • Hi Nilima,
      Both of you should have term plans asap – check HDFC click 2 protect & ICICI Icare both of good claim settlement ration & will also fit in your budget.

  132. Hi Hemant,
    I am great fan of your articles. Thanks a ton for sharing such information.
    I am 29 year old healthy female. I want to buy a term policy.
    I have short listed ICICI Pru iCare among all the insurance companies.its online policy for 30 years and sum assured is 25 lacs
    They donot conduct medicals. They say that , their product is designed in such a way that , medical test is not required. My question is that , as medical tests are not conducted , will there be any problem in claim settlment. Can this icare product be trusted ? Please help me

    • Hi Moksha,
      You can go for it – insurance is contract & if ICICI is doing it without mediclaim it is their problem not yours. You just mention all thing with best of your knowledge.

  133. hi…need your advice now i am 38 years old shall i go for term insurance plan i am planing from aviva i-term for 32 years.

    plz guide!!!!

  134. Mr. Hemant,

    I am 40 yrs of age and would like have a term policy of 50 L insured sum so that in case of any thing happen to me my family can coup up with financial demad. Kindly Suggest me which company and plan is the best in India to opt for.

    Thanks.

    S Barman

    • Hi Barman,

      You can have HDFC Click 2 Protect online term plan for the same sum insured that you have mentioned

  135. Dear Hemant ji,

    According to your comment about during taking the terms policy never hide any dieseses.
    I would like to get your advise before taking the terms policy, my question is that I am suffering from skin allergy and second some time I fall in depression due to uneven situation and now I am taking treatment of depression. I am an engineer and working in private company. its need to mention above problem in the policy ? and I if mention above matter then I will be applicable to take the policy? If will applicable to take the policy if any miss happining will held with me then my family can get the sum assured without any trouble? please let me know as sson as possible because within this week I want to take the term policy.

    Best regards,
    Pradeep

  136. Dear Hemant,
    I have been searching for details on Term plans for past sometime and than found your blog. Believe me this is the best for a person thinking of buying a Term Insurance. Hats off to you Hemant!
    I have a query. If we have left smoking (2-3 cigg. per day) for past 1 year and dont intend to smoke in future ever, than should we disclose smoking to the Insurer and pay increased premiums for the tenure?
    Though I understand that future is uncertain and insurance policy can come in use any time (may be in 1 year or so) but i like take risk and assume that I will not need to use my policy for next 5-7 years :).

    • Dear Rajesh,

      I will suggest you to disclose all the true facts about you to insurer. It will help your family to claim the policy. If you will lie to insurer then your family will not be able to get claim.

  137. Dear Hemant,

    I was looking for Term Plan for my son 34 years old.
    I checked 3 online plans that of Bharti Axa, HDFC Click 2 Protect and Aviva i life for a Sum Assured of Rs. 2 Cr. based on Rating given in ET Wealth.
    I found features of Aviva quite attractive as it gave a maximum coverage upto 35 years and also the Annual Premium was very competitive and difference in Premium for 25 / 30 and 35 years was nominally different.
    Should my son go ahead with Aviva, kindly advise your comments.

  138. Hi Hemant,

    Ten years ago, I suffered from TB of spine. I had to take the recommended medicine for 6 months continuously. Thereafter, I completely recovered from this disease and for the past 10 years, I am leading a perfectly normal life. So am I required to tell the company about this 10 years old problem from which I have recovered completely?

  139. I am 38 years old and want to take insurance for 1 Cr. with 25 years tenure.
    What do you think if i take term Insurance of 50L by Kotak/HDFC (Offline/Online Mode) and 50L by Aegon Religare? One company enjoys good reputation and other has a benefit of competetive premium. In case of any mis-happening chances are high that Kotak (since being a good company) will process the claim. I do believe that Aegon will also process the claim but in case there is any delay/ problem than we can use the claim settlement of Kotak to pursue the case.

  140. Hi,

    Is there any info on when will LIC launch their online term plan? I remember reading from papers that they will launch by end of Feb’12 but I think they haven’t.

    • Hi Navin,

      You can check other term plans as well from ICICI, HDFC, Kotak. In comparison to LIC these are the cheapest plans so you can go ahead with there term plan as well.
      In case of claim settlement definitely LIC has a higher claim settlement ratio, but if you provide all the details truly to insurer company – your claim will not be denied.

  141. Dear Hemanth,
    I am a regular reader of your issues. As I am not from Finance background, I don’t have much to comment as others do. I take all the good points provided by all of you and remember those.
    I am currently 29 and by July will be on 30. I am married and have a daughter. My annual CTC is 7 Lakhs INR. My current investments are
    1. ICICI Prudential Wealth Pru – II – Rs. 50,000 per annum.
    2. LIC Policy (jeevan anand) – Rs 10614 per annum.
    3. PPF – Rs. 25000 per annum from last two years.
    For rest of the 80 C, my organizational PF takes care.
    Right now, I want to go for a Term Insurance Plan for 50 Lakhs though I know my margin should be much more than this. I have zeroed down on ARGON RELIGARE (i-protect) or AVIVA (i-life) [both without any riders]. Please provide me a suggestion which one I can go for. Both are almost similar. I will think of taking another one after few years and not now.

    Many thanks for your input.
    Debojyoti

  142. Hi sir,
    My age is nearly 50 years.
    Which term or endowment plan is
    best for me. I would like sum assured 30Lakhs.
    Term plan cover upto atleast 70 years of my age, many co. provide only upto
    65yrs. Thanking you.

  143. Hi sir
    i am 26 year old. i am working with a nationalised bank as a probationary officer. i have a two year old baby. i want to buy a term plan,but i am cofussed about variuo policy of various co. my annual income is 300000+. please guide me.
    sum assured to be 2500000.

    with regards

  144. Hi, Hemant
    I have gone thru the various queries asked by investors and yr correspondence reply to them. I was also planning to invest in some term plan. Thanks for advising that one should plan for 2 policies instead of one. Pls reply my following queries:
    > Lic has come out with Jeevan Vridhi which is both insurance and investment plan so i want to take that policy.
    >I have seen many youngsters were talking either of LIC or various pvt parties but nobody is talking about SBI term plan. I think these plans are also good. pls advise on this.
    >As term plans are not linked with investment. But few yrs back i have taken LIC insurance plans but with time and with the increasing inflation i have understood that insurance plans are only investment and not going to give much benefit on any other front. so these insurance policy are going to run for another 10 yrs atleast so pls suggest should i discontinue or keep on investing till the time i can afford.

  145. Hi Sir,

    I am age of 44yrs and want to take term policy with 50lakhs
    please suggest which is best

    • There is no such thing called “the best” plan sir. You may consider HDFC or Kotak’s term insurance. Also, use the factors explained in this article to select the best one that suits you.

  146. Hi Hemant,

    First let me thank you for writing such an informative blog. There is so much information already documented in your blog that there inspite of googling for hours i didn’t come across an uncovered point which would add value on decision making.

    I am 28 years old and looking for 2 term plan to cover me for total sum insured of 1 crore. Apart from various do-don’t you have highlighted in preceeding comments, i would like you seek your expertise on following point. For most of the insurance providers, maximum term period is 30 years ie: for my age it will expire by 58 years. So even though i want to start now i would still be short of even my retirement ager or say 65 years which is maximum entry age by most of the providers. I could find that only Aegon Religare providers cover intil 75 years of age. Can you suggest any other term plan which would give me maximum age cover.

    With Regards,
    Vibhor

  147. Hi,
    Is there any term plan for which the annual premium can be paid on a monthly basis? Instead of buying one term plan of 50 Lakhs, should I go for a less amount (ie., policy amount 10/15 lakhs) and buying 4 policies a year on a quarterly gap?

  148. Hi,

    I am 31 years guy with wife and two childrens (4 Years and 8 months respectively). I dont have any term policies until now.

    Is this is the right time to take a term policy……….?

    If yes, for a sum assured of 80 Lakhs………I want to take two policies. One policy from LIC / SBI Life / HDFC for Rs.30 lakhs and another policy from Kotak / Aviva / Met-Life for 50 Lakhs.

    Is my decission is correct or not…………..if not please suggest me the correct combination.

    Regards,

    Prasad

  149. I am a 50 year old NRI with health problems. I will be returning to India after 2 years. Am I allowed to take term insurance and health insurance. I am coming to India in December for 15 days, is it possible to finish the procedure in 15 days? What dpcuments do I need to get?
    Thanks

  150. Dear Hemant,

    Thank you very much for such great article on term plans. Really appreciate your work and help on this.

    I am planning to buy a term insurance with SA around 25-30 lakhs for about 25 years. I have gone through your article and kind of decided to go with following options. Please could you review and provide your suggestions ?

    Age : 30 years, have a home loan of 25 lakhs

    HDFC click 2 protect : 20 lakhs for 25 years
    Kotak e term : 10 lakhs for 25 years

    Please could you suggest whether I should go for any comprehensive insurance policy as well? If yes please could you suggest 1 good general insurance company?

  151. What does “Maturity benefit: no amount is payable on maturity” mean in Term policy

    What happens if the policy holder dies after maturity?

    • Hi Reshma,

      Term Insurance is for a specific period of time (say 30 years or so) and there is no amount will be paid when the policy period ends. The premium you pay is to secure your life during the policy period.

      Once the policy period is over you are out of cover and if something happens after that then definately no one will pay…you are cover till you r paying premium.

      Hopes it answers all your queries.

      Thanks
      Amit

  152. Thx Amit…Thats a disadvantage. In this case i feel its better to go for Endowment or money back policies. Atleast i will have some returns rather than nothing incase i live upto my maturity period.

    • Hi Reshma,
      All the plans have their different look out, term policy basic funda is to cover ones life, which is utmost important to cover the risk if in case bread eraner is not there in the family.

      Secondally if you want maturity benefit then go ahead for endowment plan etc..consider these two polices silos and invest accordingly.
      Thanks,
      Amit

    • You can get better returns if you invest the same money elsewhere. In endowment policies you cannot get more than 5-6% returns, which is even lesser than FDs.
      Now you might say that you are getting insurance as well. But you can get much higher sum assured in term insurance at a very less premium.

      • You are true Vivek, one should consider standalone investment plans. But while deciding amongst the plans available we have to keep in mind the tax free maturity amount where as in FD’s interest is taxable.

    • In that case Reshma your premium will be high or at same premium your sum assured will be considerably low.

  153. Term plan with premium returns if you are not dead in your policy tenure.Suggest me should i go for this type policy of AMSURE.And in this policy we have PPT only 11 yrs although premium is bit higher.

    SUGGEST ME

    Thanks

  154. Hi,
    Indeed a good article.

    My age is 38 years, wife – 35 years and a son – 7 years. Annual income: 2 Lacs, Liabilities – Home Loan of 6 Lacs.

    I bought just yesterday aviva i-term plan for 25 lacs and 32 years – premium is around 6090 per year. I bought it yesterday, and today I came to know about this article.

    I would like to share your views on my decision.

    Thanks in advance

  155. Dear sir,

    I am in age of 39 with wife and 2 children. I have already taken one term insurance from SBI for 15 lacs and would like to increas the sum assured to 50 lacs from other agency. Could you please give which is the best company other than SBI. I prefer LIC, your advice is highly appreciated. I have taken mediclaim for 1 lac each for my family and planning to switch over to Family floater from National Insurance or other govt.institution rather than Pvt.institution for a longer period. Also, advice whether I have to take any critical illnes insurace for self. I don’t have any habit for drinking/Smoking.

    Please advice.

    Regards

    Girish

  156. Dear Hemant,

    While searching for Term insurance details through site , I have seen your website “ Tflguide.com.” Really it is very good and your advice to various queries was really appreciatable.I am writing this mail for clarifying my below doubts .

    1. I am married and father of 2 small children . I have taken one term insurance from SBI life insurance for 15 lacs and now found it is not adequate and planning to increase sum assured amount to 50 lacs. Which is the best one , I prefer from LIC. Your advice is highly appreciated. Is it is required to take any critical illness insurance for self.
    2. I have taken Medical insurance for policy 1 lac each , individually, for self and family(wife+ 2 children) to renew for a longer period, to reduce medical expenses in retirement age from National Insurance. Kindly advice whether this amount is enough or I have to switch over to Family floater. My main idea is to meet the medical expenses for self and wife in older age.
    Presently company is providing insurance for self and family.

    Your valuable advice is highly appreciated.

    Regards

    Girish

  157. i have 30 lakh term plan + 8 lakh critical illness insurance from birla sunlife…
    2 lakh mediclaim insurance from star health & 2 lakh jeevan aarogya from lic… have 5 lakh accident insurance from oriental insurance….

    now i want a additional term plan of 25 lakhs… which private insurance company is good… please guide

  158. Hi,
    Is it better to surrender policy or make it as paid up and buy a term policy instead?

    With Regards,
    Hemanth

    • Hi Hemanth,
      Paid up & surrender depends on time value of money calculation – but to simplify, if you have paid less than 40% of the premium surrendering looks a better option.

  159. Hello Hemant,
    I am a 29 years old central employee and my annual income is about 5 lakh. I want to take term plan, which will help to my family ( wife and 3 year old son) in future if I am not around them. I tried to read all comments but (as usual I could not do!) something made me confuse like ‘term plan should be divide into 2 parts’. Please explain it again and suggest me for which term plan should I go. I want 50 lakhs sum assured term plan. Plz suggest…!

    Regards,
    Sumit K. A.

  160. Hello Hemant,

    I am 28 years old, in todays hetic life I am not sure which term plan should I take, I would like cover myself for 1 cr.

    I would request your guidance on this, as I do not understand much about these plans

    Thank You,
    Abhishek Somway

  161. “if you are involved in any of the illegal activities and death occurs”, then this type of death is not covered in claim .

    According to me “illegal” is a very broad term.

    Driving while consuming alcohol is also illegal
    6 people Travelling in a tourist taxi with 4+1 limit, is also illegal
    Jumping traffic signal is also illegal.
    driving without helemt

    So if death occurs, in the course of above illegal activities, then can company can reject the claim ?.

    Please help me to clarify on my doubts.

    • Hi Rajesh,
      No it won’t reject your claim for above mentioned activities as even suicide is covered after 1 year.

  162. I had a term plan last year and have gone through medical and paid premium , At time of taking policy i was fit and paid premium as asked by insurance company

    now i am having problems relavant to health ( heart desease ), is it compulsory to inform to insurance company ?

    i have change in personal detail like address , should i inform to insurance company.

    • Hi Rajesh,
      In term plans it is not required to share changes in health conditions but in case of mediclaim it is expected.

  163. Hello,

    Just wanted to know how is Edelweiss Tokio Insurance as a company & is it recommeded to go for a insurance plan from this company

    • Hi Srinivas,
      They are new in Indian markets – you can stick with the existing household names.

  164. Hello Sir

    I want to buy term plan of 20-20 lacs each from two different company for 25 years coverage . My age is 36.4 years.I want to buy for securing my family future . Plz suggest me .This is my humble request to you. Coz you have knowlegde of policies.I dont drink,dont smoke and there are no physical problem .TIll now I am perfect by health. But my family depend on me.please sir suggest me as soon as possible .
    Thanx & Regards

    Sanjay kr.

  165. Hi sir

    Thanx for help and guide I opting I care-2 option.

    I am planing to secure my life from ICICI 25 lakhs rs .Second I will take from ageon religare . Am I right sir.50 Lakhs of coverage(Term Plan) actually I want.

    Plz suggest me.

    Thanx

  166. Hello,

    I am a 31yr old marketing professional with CTC of 11.5LPA. I currently have 2 LIC endowment plans operational since 2004. The details are:

    1. Jeevan Mitra Double cover endowment + profits + Acc. benefits with Qtly premium of 2082. Sum assured = Rs 200000/-

    2. LIC Endowment assurance policy with profits + Acc benefits with Qtly premium of Rs 3195. Sum assured = Rs 400000/-

    I have been scouting for a term plan and feel comfortable with 2 term plans of LIC + HDFC/Kotak with total risk coverage of 1cr. I am also thinking of discontinuing the two existing LIC endowment policies i have, as the premium vs rewards is too less. Please suggest.

    Regards

    Ankit

    • hi ankit if u have already paid the 3rd year premium u can paid up this policies for more details u should check the article how to exit from the missold policies?.

  168. Yes. The endowment policies have been operational since 2004. I would look into the article to know more.

    As of the term plan, i am confused between LIC and HDFC/ICICI/Kotak, as the latter’s premium is almost half of LIC. I would need to increase my cover in future, hence unable to decide, whether i should put all the eggs in LIC basket or should i risk with private players like HDFC/ICICI for a 30 year term (not sure because of such a long term viability). LIC seems comfortable but a double premium than private player is un-digestable. Also LIC does not have critical illness/ accidental riders ! Please guide.

    ps: I am willing to take 50L pure term for 30 years. I currently stand at 31 with 11.5 CTC/annum.

    Ankit

  169. dear ankit there is nothing wrong in investing the money private sector players however for u relief u can take 2 term plan lic and any one of the private sector companies i know the premium is high in case of lic term plan but dear friend itz better instead of endoment ulip products where premium r arounf 70000 p.a.for instance if u have 20000 or 30000 to invest then invest the 15000 rs for lic term plan and the remaing bal should be invested in ppf then see the power of compounding.regarding ur insecurity towards insurance private sector companies here is the link of hdfc life insurance company’s annual report for the f.y2010-11 the hdc life growth is 17.9% for f.y 2010-10 which is better than 8.9% in f.y2009-10.the total aum of the company is 27177 crs

  170. Term assurance plans – Are they really cheaper.?

    I am an NRI working in Muscat for last 12 years.
    I am seeing a number of web articles about term assurance
    plans now a days and the market shows that many people
    are really attracted with the term plans in India.

    The real attraction of a term plan is nothing but it’s low cost.
    One can get insurance protection at a very low premium
    when comparing with the other insurance products.
    But, is it true.? Are these term plans offering insurance
    protection at a low cost.? At least for NRIs, I am sure that
    term plans are becoming costlier than olden days.

    In general, when an NRI apply for a term plan, the insurance
    company will insist for a medical check up. The medical test
    will be mandatory if the applicant’s age is more than 35.
    If any of the health parameter (like cholesterol, sugar, bp etc)
    are slightly high, the applicant will be asked to pay an extra
    premium which will be 40% to 60% of basic premium for NRIs.

    For example, for availing a term insurance plan from ICICI, a 35
    years old resident individual has to pay Rs.12000 pa for an
    insurance coverage of Rs.25 lacs for 30 years, with permanent
    disability rider. (Product name : Pure protect-Elite)

    Suppose, an NRI apply for the same product and his triglycerides
    are 1.8 (slightly high as against normal reading 1.7) and sugar
    level is 5.7 (slightly high against normal reading 5.5), he has to pay
    40 % to 60% extra premium. That is, he has to pay Rs.18000 to
    Rs.19000 pa for availing the same product.

    In my office, we are collecting the insurance details of all our
    employees as a part of our employee welfare scheme. It’s just for
    supporting them, in case of any mishap in future. We are having a
    database since 2008 and I can prove that all insurance companies
    irrespective of their brand profile charging NRIs with extra premium
    for their term insurance plans.

    In the above case, no premium will be returned to the customer as
    there is no survival benefit is offered. But, if you apply for a product
    with the return of premium, please note that you will have to pay only
    Rs.5500 more per annum, and you will get back the entire premium
    after 30 years. (It’s very clear what insurance companies are aiming
    by charging extra premium).

    In nutshell, an NRI should not accept any term plans with extra
    premium, instead, he should go for a term plan with return of premium.
    Expecting your research and review please.

    RAJESH BABU
    Muscat

  171. Sir, my DOB is 25/10/1972 and my monthly income is 26000/-. I am planning to close my all the life insurance policies and want to invest in Term-Plan. I am having one son, who is studying in Nursery. I am having one Home Loan with a premium of Rs. 13000/- p.m. Please suggest me the best and cheap Term Plan.

  172. Sir, I was told for a business man that the annual income must be not less than 5 lacs. If it less than that I cannot take a term plan for 50 Lacs.Kindly reply

  173. Can anyone explain the“Section 45 of Insurance Act, 1938″ in detail.? This will be really informative for many readers. Please explain.

  174. Dear Hemant,
    I am a NRI working in Saudi. I have taken SBI Saral Sheild Term Insurance for 15 lacs(during my last vaccation period ) and planning to take 35 lacs from Kotak (as per your various above mails) .But for kotak there is no online/ term plan scheme for NRI. Shall I take it from India during my vaccation period.Whether I have to disclose I am a NRI. LIC premium is very costly.Please advise which is other best company for NRI.

    Regards

    Girish

  175. Dear Sir,

    Please advise,wheteher NRI can take term insurance from India,while he was out side India, during policy taken period.

    Whether he can take during his vaccation period (1 – 2 months in India)

    Please advise

    Regards

    Girish

  176. Want term plan of 1 crore for son who is going to canada for further studies.
    the term plan must include terriorist attact coverage.
    taking term plan in india and son studying in canada. can it covers if anything happened in canada

  177. Hi,
    I am 29 years old married man & don’t have a term plan till now. My yearly income is 11.5 lakh. I have a home loan of 15 lakh.

    I have medical insurance cover from my company with a individual cover of 1 lakh for myself, wife & parents.

    I wanted suggestion from you on the following points:-

    1) Which term plan to chose? What should be the duration & cover amount?
    2) Do I need to take additional medical cover for my family? If yes, which one is the best & cover amount?
    Please Guide.

    Regards,
    Raj

  178. Hi Hemant,
    i am 31 year old and have descided to take HDFC click to protect of 50Lk for 30 years but after reading the lots of reviews on net (complaint board and mouthshut) regrading the policy issuence after payment and poor service from HDFC. Now i am confused whether to go for Click to protect or some other company, please advise.
    Waiting for your reply…

  179. Thanks Hemant for your prompt reply..

    as i read the above discussion should i spilt it to 25+25 of two diffrent insurer or should i take only one of 50 Lakh from HDFC?

    If two, which would be the Second company?
    Kindly advise…

  181. Hi Hemant Beniwal,

    I was planning to invest in either of ICICI pru elite wealth and icici pre pinnacle super-unit linked.Since these plans are unit linked, am not too sure if they are viable options:

    I aim to invest about 5 lakhs per year for the next 5 year. My investment horizon is about 10 years and my My basic aim is to earn a tax free return of about 11-12%.
    I don’t want to risk all the money so wa swondering if a highest NAV plan would suit or should i just trust the wealth manager.

    Let me know if you think there is any other investment option on hand.

    I already have LIC term insurance as well as Kotak & ING Ulip.

    best,
    Rajesh

  182. Hi Hemant,

    Great articles, just happened to check this site today, planning for pure Term insurance from last week… got most valuable info here.

    Planning for 75 Lacs – 1 cr SA… i can take 25 each from 3-4 companies… and 2006 took jeevan anand for 3 lac SA paying 35k for 10 years ( was not properly advised ).. should i discontuine this ,need to pay another 4 years for jeevan anand.. please suggest

    Also planning a RD in bank for 2k per month for 3 years and 2 SIP’s of 1ooo each from next month for 3- 5 years ..please suggest.

    Regards
    Krishna

    • Hi Praveen,

      Both are good but may have variation in their underwriting process. Kotak has a cheaper term plan (offline) even before Aviva launched one and may have an edge in the experience. You can select on basis of your parameters.

  184. Dear Hemant,

    From reading all the posts of yours I atleast agree that it is most importnat to take the term insurance.

    I have a query if you can answer please.

    as per IRDA i can insured only for 20 times of my salary ??

    if yes then it means i can take a cover of 60 lacs.

    so can i maxmise it to 1.2 cr by taking to term policies by different companies?? and can you tell me a term insurance which covers terrorism also as well as accidental death ???

    thanks in advance

  185. Hi Hemant
    My age is 31 and my spouse is 30. I have a kid of 1month old.I’m thinking of getting a pure simple term policy and there are various term policies available in market today. Its very sad that even after reading all the articles on this page I’m still confused which term policy i should opt for..Can u pls suggest term policies and mail it to me.
    Warm regards
    Sunil Sharma

  186. Hello Hemant,

    After reading all your articles I have decided to take a simple yet reliable online term insurance plan and avoided investment through insurance…Currently my age is 22 (twenty two) years old and parents are dependents, had searched for online term insurance plan but found that 35 years is the maximum policy term available. So my policy will expire at 57 years. Probably my retirement will be at 60 years, so for 3 years during highest risk (of dying) I will not be insured at all.So my query is “SHOULD I WAIT TILL 25 YEARS AND THEN OPT FOR MAXIMUM TERM POLICY WHICH WILL COVER MY RETIREMENT?”..Obviously premium are bound to increase after 3 years but I think I will be on safer side..Kindly provide your valuable suggestions…Awaiting for your earliest reply…
    Thanking you.

    Thanks and Regards,
    Deepak

    • Hi Deepak,

      it will not be a wise decision to wait for term innuarnce since you have dependents.You should avail the term for maximum period. Do remember that term insurance coverage is based on your income.So you might not get the highest amount you are looking at.Rather, You should enhance it later when your income increases. At that time you can avail the maximum term till your retirement.
      You can simultaneously look at creating a corpus through investing since you have a very long horizon. Even through small amount systematically you can achieve more than what you can avail through a term plan.

  187. Hi Hemanth,
    After reading the complete conversation from everyone about the term insurance plan, i would like to secure my family for Rs50,00,000 rupees as i have taken a home loan of Rs.16lakhs.
    I thought of going with ICICI and Kotak as per the discussions.
    I also planned to share the policies between two companies as this will be further secured for my family.

    But i also registered with policybaazar.com site and they suggested to choose HDFC due to high claim settlement ratio and the health certificate which has to be given while taking the online policy, as this can’t be a reason for rejection, when my family goes for claim..
    Because ICICI doesnt ask for a health certificate, the rejection can be done as there is no health record for online term insurance from them.!
    Also, policy baazar suggested to go to Bharti-Axa’s e-Protect as another option.

    Im ready to pay a premium until Rs8500 for my SA of Rs50,00,000 from two policies.

    Please suggest me whether to choose the one with health certificate required. How’s your view on this point?

    Also, i found two more term assurance policies from HDFC. one is Term assurance and Loan assurance? are these also belong to Term insurance as the name says? Can you help me understand the difference between the HDFC click2 protect and the new term assurance policy?
    Expecting your comments and suggestions.

    Thanks and Best Regards,
    Babu N

    • H Babu,

      A loan term assurance is mainly for covering your loan. In this policy your SA keeps on reducing as you repay your loan and goes to zero when fully repaid.Thus it only protects your family from the loan liability.
      Contrary to this a pure term insurance is a much wiser choice to give financial protection to your loved ones which i believe you have already decided.

      Now every company s having a different criteria for term isnurance. Company which are taking health certificate are no different then which are not taking.In both cases they are covering the risk whcih can arise. ICICI doe snot take any certificate but charges a higher premium. So it is covering the risk in the premium amount. Since HDFC is charging a lower premium, they take an additional document to cover their risk i.e. health certificate. They will verify on basis of this certificate when they ill pay the claim.
      Thus both these methods are right and hence valid. Your selection should be based on other factors too.

      For good reason do not go alone by what any mediator says. The rejection by any company has to be on valid grounds since insurance is a contract. So read reviews, analyse yourself and then take a decisions.Both ICICI and HDFC are good and you can opt for either one on basis of your premium outgo.

      • Hi Vikas,
        I will proceed with term insurance as decided earlier.
        Thanks for the continuous support in providing clarification regarding term insurance.

  188. Hi Hemant,
    this article makes for a very informative read. i am glad i have read it. diversifying by splitting the insurance denial risk is such a common sense, logical and simple that it never occured to me !

    My question is: What are your comments on E-Insurance plans that are offered over the internet cutting the agents. they have really inexpensive premiums compared to legacy plans from the same companies. which do you think are preferable among the internet term plans if you think they are preferable.

    Regards,
    Ram

  189. Hemant

    If claim ratio is that important, everybody should go to LIC.
    LIC is the most reputed company in everybody`s view.
    LIC has more than 50 years of experience in Life Insurance, still it does not offer Term Insurance at a cheaper rate.
    The reason LIC claim ratio is always high because in most of the cases claim amounts are very small. The difference between Aegon and LIC Premium is Rs. 10000/-. Do you think it is worth going for reputation and claim ratio of the company.

  190. I m 30 yrs old I want 25 lacs term policy but cnfusd in LIC nd private companies. pls suggest which covers all incidents like earthquake, terrorist attack etc…some LIC agent told all private cmpnies not covering this and if u go for online plan dere r some limitations for 3-5 yrs for cvrage.

  191. Hi Hemant
    i am a Govt.employee with an annual income of about 5 lacs, i want to go for a term plan for 30 years, and now my age is 35 years, a non smoker without any health problem,i am married, kindly suggest which policy is best suited for me..

    Thanks and regards
    Bidyut

  192. Hi Hemant,

    I am working in a pvt company, my annual income of about 4.5 lacs.
    I want to go for a plan for 5 years terms only and my age is 31 years.
    I am married person. Kindly suggest which policy is best for me.

    For your information i am asking suggetion for 5 years terms only

    Thanks & Regards
    Nagashetty.K

  193. Hi All ,
    Can some one suggest me a good term plam from the best company ….as of now i have approached 2 . Aviva i life …and LIC Term plan …. They way i understood is Aviva is good then LIC compare to features and the premium . but again Aviva is a Pvt . organization can i believe …

    Please advise thanks

    Sunil

  194. Hello Hemant,

    I am 32 yrs old married female with an income of 4l p.a ,self employed. We do not have loans,liabilities.I am soon to be a mom.therefore, planning to buy a term plan.I am looking at 5ol cover ,30yrs policy term,which i want to split between LIC (offline -from known agent of family)and one private player kotak /icici for 25l each
    (online)
    My query is :
    1. I have checked the advantage of lower premium,should i go for ONLINE PURCHASE of my second policy i.e kotak or icici?OR
    both purchases offline would be safer looking into claim settlement aspect?
    please reply am I on the right track?
    Thanks.

  195. Greetings,

    Pleasure reading the Blog and all the questions and suggestions. Request you to kindly guide me on my question’s –
    1. Is buying Insurance Online a good and safe practice?
    2. Going by the thumbrule of having a cover of 10 times the annual Gross Income, I have decided to buy a Term Plan providing a cover of 1 crore split into 2 different policies of 50lacs each. After a lot of R&D am still not able to decide on which 2 policies. Will be grateful if you can advise me 2 good term policies to buy Online. Below is my profile info –
    Age: 28yrs
    Married and have a month old baby!
    Dependents : Parents and Wife

    • 1. Yes, it is. It mostly depends on how comfortable you are with making online transactions.

      2. It is a good strategy to split the cover to two different companies. You may pick from Aviva, Kotak, HDFC, ICICI.

      • DONT GO FOR HDFC–AFTER SERVICE POLICY IS WORST IN WORLD.

        THEY MAKE FAKE PROMISES NOTHING MORE THAN THAT. AS SUCH A BIG BRAND THEY WILL NOT DESERVE TO BE CALLED A COMPANY

  196. Dear Hemant,

    I am also looking for a team plan for me (32 year old men, having 2 dependent), i have shortlisted below two options:
    1. Aviva iLife
    2. HDFC Click2Protect

    From above discussion, I noticed that you are not suggesting for Aviva ilife plan, can you please share any specific reason for this?
    I am in a delima for choosing corrent options for me and your answer might help me to go in a right direction.

    Hoping to get hear from you soon.

    Many thanks.

  197. What about Bharti-AXA It is new launched,but premium is low and maturity is high.Should I opt.this term policy.I am 37 yr. old .Till now no term plan but within one week I am taking 50 lakh of term insurance from 1 company .Bharti-Axa in my mind .Plz suggest as soon as possible.

    Thanks

  198. Hi!

    its a very good article you had presented. The article and the dicussions gave good insights for the not familiar guys with term insurance, like me. Thanks a lot.

    Could you help me in knowing more details about the term insurance plans. I have a question.

    Suppose i had taken a term insurance cover for 50L. 50L might be huge amount at present but down the line, may after 20 years, 50L cover may not look be sufficeint for cover.

    My question is are there any plans that during our tenure we can increase our cover. if yes

    1. in how much time(years) we can increase the cover
    2. on an average how the premium rates will go up
    3. and will the LIC has the option of increasing the cover in its term polices (i know i am bit company specific)

    • I don’t think companies allow to increase the SA. But if you feel the coverage is not enough at any point of time you can always take a new policy.
      You will have flexibility to pick better plan from another company.

  199. Hi. I’m 23 years old and I have bought Aegon Religare iTerm Plan for a cover of 50 Lacs for 75 years. Could you suggest me other term plans which are really good and I should go for it.

    Thanks

  200. Dear Sir,
    I have taken GHPL Health insurance (Self +Spouse)in Feb 2010 from Andhra Bank, now i want to switch to any other insurance company but i afford only Approx Rs 4000 Premium a year, so please tell me which is the best policy with no caping and best result,
    For your information i have talk to Tata AIG, Max Bupa-Health Companian, Apollo Munich- easy Health, HDFC ERGO- Health Suraksha, Bharti Axxa.
    So i please suggest and tell any agent where i can buy the policy, because i do not want to buy directly because they will not help at the time of claim.

    Sandeep Katyal

    Faridabad
    Age 34
    M 9811400000

  201. can you tell me about Life insurance plan also, I have taken Life insurance from Kotak, Bharti, & LIC of India, can you tell me if in future some mishappening will happens with me than my nominee have to give Bond papers, Rashan Crad or Voter id or Passport which shows my relation with my nominee and death certificate or postmortam report, all Xerox copy right or wrong ????

    please tell and guid me

    Thanks & regards

    Sandeep Katyal
    9811400000

  202. I will be 33 years this year, unmarried individual, working in an MNC with annual income of 7lac pa. I have no insurance cover whatsoever.

    Can you please guide me and suggest the best possible plan(s)? Is a term plan or insurance or a high risk plan suitable?

    Thanks in advance.

    • Go for different kinds of plan.. Life insurance, Payback policy, Term policy, ULIP etc.. always have different policies to suit your financial needs of the family..

  203. Hi,

    I would like to buy health insurance policy for my parents (above 60 years age). Can you please let me know which health isurance policy is good? How about Star Health insurance??

    Regards,
    Naveen

  204. Dear Mr. Hemant,

    I, 35 years old wanted to buy Child Plan for my baby who is 1 year old, kindly suggest which is the best Plan.
    1. Kindly suggest me the Term for that Plan for Yearly payment of premium
    2. Plan for Single Premium

    Thanks in advance.

    Regards,
    Mayekar

  205. Data mention here is old & needs to be updated. Also I have term plan from Aegon ans was utterly satisfied with them. I had no issue in procuring the policy or for my medicals as Dr. had came to my house.
    I am not a fan of LIC and I belive one who charges least should be your choice of co. as claim rejecton happens only if you have lied about your health, else Aegon / others have good Claim Settlement ratio.

  206. hi,

    I am 36 years of age, married with one child (4 yr old daughter), and looking for a Life Term insurance plan with option of the Accidental death & permanent disability rider, and which covers till I am atleast 70 yrs of age.

    I would like to take up cover for 2 crores (inclusive of the Accidental death & permanent disability cover for 50 lakhs), and would prefer it to be split amoung atleast 2 Insurance companies.

    Kindly suggest which 2 policies to go with, and on what ratio.

    Thanks & Kind Regards,
    Ashraf Khalid

  207. hi,
    which is the best term policy insurer (wrt settlement ratio+low premium) for 28 yrs married man for 5000000-1 cr.I want the settlement ratio information wrt insurer wise, Where can i get ? One more query is, after paying all the years of premiums ,if nothing is happened means ,what happens to the payed amount (guranteed amount is there or not from the payed amounts) ?

    Is it good idea to take Accident rider with term life insurance or not ?

    Regards,
    Subbusharma

  208. Sir, I am interested in term plan of Rs 50,000 each fm Hdfc & ICICI. I am 22 yrs old. U/stand that till 25 yrs premiums are same being in group of 5 years. So can i delay the purcase till 25 yrs or no? . Further i work on ship & can this term plan be purchased with true facts stated & medicals done at Mumbai. Pls advise premiums for both companies – click to protect for hdfc & icare for ICICI. = regards = Manjeet Bhatia

  209. hi sir,plz guide me…
    my agent recently gave me LIC Magic plani.e. jeevan aanand (retire & enjoy ii);(i had payed 1st premium),my age is 30 & p.a. premium is 69,706/-till 25 years,means till 55 age i pay 17,42,650/-.At 56 age to 75 age,i will get 4,34,219/-p.a.there is provision of risk cover and Loan against policy also.high risk cover of rs 24,39,510/- from age 30 and growing to rs 61,79,160/-at age 56.(my yearly income is 3 lakhs from my job,married,1 daughter of 3 months age).
    Plz suggest me i have taken any wrong plan or i m on right track.
    If not plz suggest me Any good term plan –
    Also one more query…
    my father’s age is 51,he wants pension or retirement plan for 10 to 15 years term & 1,40,000/-p.a. premium.
    Agent has suggested him jeevan tarang for 15 year term-premium 12775/-yearly.sum assured is 20,000,00/-,after 15 years in 16th year he will get 13,80,000/-and after that 1,10,000/-yearly full lifetime.
    plz suggest me… –

  210. hi sir,plz guide me…
    my agent recently gave me LIC Magic plani.e. jeevan aanand (retire & enjoy ii);(i had payed 1st premium),my age is 30 & p.a. premium is 69,706/-till 25 years,means till 55 age i pay 17,42,650/-.At 56 age to 75 age,i will get 4,34,219/-p.a.there is provision of risk cover and Loan against policy also.high risk cover of rs 24,39,510/- from age 30 and growing to rs 61,79,160/-at age 56.(my yearly income is 3 lakhs from my job,married,1 daughter of 3 months age).
    Plz suggest me i have taken any wrong plan or i m on right track.
    If not plz suggest me Any good term plan –
    Also one more query…
    my father’s age is 51,he wants pension or retirement plan for 10 to 15 years term & 1,40,000/-p.a. premium.
    Agent has suggested him jeevan tarang for 15 year term-premium 12775/-monthly.sum assured is 20,000,00/-,after 15 years in 16th year he will get 13,80,000/-and after that 1,10,000/-yearly full lifetime.
    plz suggest me… –

  211. Dear Hemant,
    I have been a regular follower of your blogs, specially on insurance, as I was planning to buy the same. In past year, I have purchased separate accident policy for 30 L with disability cover – premium approx. 3500/-. Since past 4years, already had a family floater Mediclaim policy for 8 L – Oriental (includes my mother also). The only part pending was Term plan, which after a lot of research on CSR & Brand value, I opted for HDFC CTP (for 75 L – 20 Y period, paid a premium of 18000/-, I am 42Y male, non-tobacco user, occasional alcoholic). I applied on 7th Aug,13 post which I recd. a call that their RM / Employee would contact me for the same. With his help, I filled up the form on 12.08.13. I am undergoing treatment for slightly higher cholesterol, which I have mentioned in the form. Have also given past 2 years medical reports along with dr’s prescriptions to him. In past medical history, I have mentioned that I had some small stone problem in kidney around 16-17 years back, which was fully cured then. After one week, I recd. information to get medicals done at a centre near my home. I undertook the tests. Payment was made by them (2900/-) as I was advised. The reports were directly sent to HDFC. After one week, I recd. another letter to undergo additional medical tests (Ultrasound & some Urine tests) at MY COST. I spoke to the RM, who told that company bears only the cost of standard tests (which was approx. 2900/-), but any additional tests required based on individual’s medical condition would have to be borne by you at your cost. I paid another 2300/- for the tests. In ultrasound, I was detected with small stone in left kidney (which came as surprise, as I was fully cured earlier). I requested them to share the reports with me so that I can get myself checked up with my doctor. They said that the reports wont be shared until policy is allotted to you. Today, I have recd. another mail from them asking to submit the documents of past treatment (which were already given to their RM, who I think has not yet submitted the same). They are also asking for the test reports of 2nd round of medical, which the test lab is supposed to send directly to them. 3rd requirement is they have given a questionnaire for the attending doctor to fill & sign. The form asks for current condition of the patient. No doctor can advice the same till he sees the latest test reports of a patient. I am confused. If I go to doctor to get the form filled up, he will ask for test reports which are with HDFC. For getting the doctor’s comments on the form, I might need to spend another 2500/- to undertake the fresh tests. Even after doing so, I am not sure by how much the premium would be inflated ? There seems to be no coordination between the sales RM / operations team, as the RM says he has submitted the documents already, but they are again asking for the same.
    Hemant, pls. advice, at this stage if I plan to withdraw, is it advisable ? If after refund of premium, I opt for any other company’s term plan, they ask whether you have earlier applied for any other company’s plan / denied cover etc., should one clearly state the facts in other company (as I want to withdraw purely because of confusion & harrassment by HDFC I am feeling & maybe I may not be able to afford the increase in premium they may ask for.)
    Need advice from you. Will update the further progress on my case.
    Thanks.
    Manish.

  213. Hi Hemant,

    Thanks for sharing such useful information.

    I am looking for term plan. Before that I want to surrender or Paid UP my LIC Jeevan Anand Policy which I have taken in May-2011. Paying Rs 15,412 half yearly. This year in December I will pay 6th premium and completing 3 in Apr-2014 years.

    Please suggest me that whether I should go with surrender or paid up.

    Also give me some best options for term plan.

    Thanks

    • Hi Hemant,

      I have gone through below mentioned link and see Mudit ask his Insurance company to take medical test before issuing Term policy

      “Read how Mudit forced insurance companies to do medical test before taking online term plan https://www.retirewise.in/2011/03/best-term-insurance-plan-india.html#comment-7261”

      Today, I have applied online Term policy from ICICI (iCare) and also paid premium online and wanted to ask following

      1. What are the benefits for asking Insurance Co. to take Medical test in case of term plan?

      2. Any disadvantage for NOT having medical test?

      3. What IRDA says in this regard?

      4. As I have already paid premium, can I ask from ICICI to go for Medical check-up? though it is not required by them.

      5. If ICICI refuses, what options would available in front of me?

      I have read few post on TFL regarding the Sum Assured

      1. Is there any link between Salary drawn Vs. Sum Assured? what I wanted to ask for e.g.

      If any person is earning Rs30,000 per month then can’t he take 1cr sum Assured?I mean is there any fixed formula to know Sum Assured by IRDA?

      Kindly respond. Thanks!!

      • Hi Vikas,

        Non-medical test is a feature which company is providing. There is no disadvantage in it. But you shoudl check for the terms of the policy.

        The link between salary and SA is the thumb rule which states the amount of life insurance coverage one should buy. The rule has been taken from different analysis which gives you the coverage amount you should buy as a multiple of your income.

  214. Hi,
    i want to buy a Term plan sa 75lacs,i am married and blessed with a baby who is 5 months old,my age is 27 yrs……….. please suggest me some policies.

    • Hi Vishal,

      You can consider buying online term plans which will be cheaper. HDFC, ICICI, Kotak and Aviva are running their plans from a good time.

  215. Hi,
    My age is 23 . I am thinking to buy 2 term policies. Can i take now so that i would get maximum years upto 55.What are policies i can take

  216. Dear Hemanth,

    I happened to see your website today during my research on Term Insurance options and thanks for the excellent information.

    My age is 32, married and have a 2 year old daughter. I draw about 10 lakhs per annum.

    I planned to go for term insurance and I thought of going for a 1cr. (I think 10 times to ur current annual salary has to be considered right). My father being an ardent fan of LIC has recommended me about LIC and by default I also applied for LIC.

    I went with Rs 50 Lakhs which is working out to be around Rs19000. I just completed the medicals today.

    I went through the comments section and have seen your suggestion to Rajesh and really liked it.

    Could you please recommend if I need to decrease the LIC to a smaller amount, say 25 Lakhs and split the remaining between HDFC/ICICI/Kotak?

    Please help me at the earliest as I could take a timely decision before my cheque is cleared by LIC.

    Hoping for a positive response

    From your New Fan,
    Rakesh

    • Hi Rakesh,

      It’s difficult to take give a view in such a hurry.
      Yes, LIC cost is higher than online term plans cause it involves the cost of an agent. Splitting into two is a viable option which you can consider.

  217. Hi Hemant,

    My age is 30 year. I am married and have one child.
    Currently I earn 8.0 lac per annum.
    I have endowmwnt plans from LIC with sum covered only 10 lacs. Also have medical insuarance of 3.0 lac from Max Bupa apart from accidental cover & medical cover from my current company.
    After reading your articles regularly, I decided to buy Term plan and close the endoement plans.
    Request you to suggest the suitable term plan and amount covered.

    Regards,
    Vinay Mishra

    • Hi Vinay,

      The actual need of life insurance coverage can only be estimated after a detailed analysis. But as a thumb rule at least 10-15 times of your income should be there.

  218. Hello Hemant Sir,

    I must congratulate and thank you for providing such a critical information with such a easy way. Please keep doing service to humanity like this. We all wish your success and peace in life.

    I was wondering if you could also help me in clarifying my confusion.

    About me :
    Age 32 years.
    Socially Smoker and Drinker.
    Married.
    Single earner.
    No kids(not even planning)
    Working in an IT firm(Bangalore).
    Annual Income : 17 LPA
    PPF investment 1 lac per year(accumulated 7 lacs by now)
    NSC investment around 1.5 lac
    Savings in account around 3 lacs
    I have a home loan(HDFC Ltd) of 24 Lac.

    Now my questions :
    1). I am thinking of two term insurances.
    (a). 25 lacs for 5 years(called Reducing type I guess) and from any cheapest premium provider company(Say Aegon Religare). I decided this because I am targetting my loan closure in 5 years from now. And once loan is closed, I will close this policy too.
    (b). 1 Crore for longer period(say 30 years). This would be the one I would continue life long. I would choose some front runner for this(Say ICICI Prulife, HDFC Click2protect or LIC).

    Am I thinking right or any advice for me?

    2). I am totally confused about riders, I am completely failed to understand what are they, if they are included in package or not, if rider’s sum is extra on sum assured or is part of total sum assured. Any complete explanation/guide/article would be of great help!

    3). I am also inclined towards single shot premium to avoid future tensions. In my stream we change companies almost every 2 years, bank account changes and so on. Please shed some light on it as well.

    4). Also my CIBIL report is not that great, I do not get credit cards etc. Only I know how much pain I went through to get my home loan sanctioned. Would bad cibil report create any problem in getting term insurance?

    5). If I get in discussion with some call center agent of any insurance company, what are those tricky questions I should ask to get all the important information extracted from them. Any sort of checklist you know.

    At last I would thank you in advance for answering my queries and god bless you.

    Amit Saxena

  219. Dear Hemant,

    I’ve taken ICICIPru smart kid policy(sum assured: Rs 5.5 lakh) in the year 2011-12. since then I have paid three installments of Rs 30,000/- each.
    Last year better sense prevailed and I stopped paying further premium. As per their policy, surrender value is near nil after 3premiums.
    How to exit as huge sum is stuck up here or should I continue the policy?
    I keep on getting calls from icicipru to pay the premium.
    I have taken a term plan of Rs 1 cr.

  220. My age is 30 years.My annual income is Rs 3 lakh.
    I want to take term insurance policy.Please guide me at least three companies and what should be the sum assured and what will be the time period for me and what will be the premium.I am a married person.Should my wife also take an insurance term plan?
    Thank you

  221. Hi,
    I would like to ask you , I want take up to 50 lakhs term policy for my husband . My husband DOB is 12/10/1971
    I want policy with this following riders-
    a) Accident benefits, Disability Benefit , Critical Illness benefit, Waiver of Premium
    atleast accidental and waiver of premium riders should be cover.
    I have ready to pay yearly Premium up to 10,000/-
    Please advice which one policy to go for .

  222. hi TFL guys,
    i am 30 years old and my wife is dependant.
    i already have life insurance for coverage for 38lakhs in sbi smart shield for 30 yrs and lic jeevan anand for 3 lakhs for 21 years. i want to increase my coverage to 1 crore in kotak e term insurance policy. i am working as marine engr in merchant navy.
    currently i dont have any mediclaim policy other than from my company’s floater mediclaim policy upto 2 lakhs and personal accident policy upto 20 lakhs. is it required to take any additional medical policy .
    kindly advise regarding term policy and mediclaim policy

    • Vasanth,

      It’s advisable that you have a standalone mediclaim policy apart from company group insurance. You can consider buying a family floater health plan covering you and your wife.

      For enhancing your term insurance you can go ahead with Kotak Life.

  223. My age is 31 and i want to buy term plan of 1 Cr .

    As per Section 45 of Insurance Act, 1938 states: In accordance with Section 45 of Insurance Act, 1938, no policy of life insurance shall, after the expiry of two years

    So why there is variation in premium if no company can reject any claim after 2-3 years.

    Please suggest i am looking term plan for 40-45 years

    Thanks

  224. Dear Hemant,

    Trust you are doing well.

    I am 41 yrs old and don’t have any diseases as of now and i want to buy 1 cr term plan (maybe HDFC Click2protect ). I have few queries as listed below and request you to guide me

    1) Every insurance company does the medical checkup for term plan, can we request the insurance company to provide us the copy of medical report (if even it required us to pay some money)?
    2) I have 2 LIC policies on my name and 3 on my kids names and i am paying the premium of all. So do i need to mention about all the 5 policies or just 2 policies ?
    3) My father is around 80 yrs now and he is a diabetic patient. Neither he nor i recollect from he was having diabetic. While filing the term form, I have seen a question, where we have to mention the details like when (what age) our family has been suffering from diseases. I am not sure that to answer to this question. At the end i don’t want the claim (if any) to get reject due to false information.
    4) There is one more question in the form to mention “if there is plan to travel abroad in next 6 month”, i work in software company and things chances very dynamically here. I am not sure if i should say ‘Yes or No here 🙂
    5) There is one more question “Do you wish to hold this policy electronically with an insurance repository?: ” a) What does this mean and b) what do we need to select here. c) what is E-Insurance account?

    Appreciate if you can reply to me question
    Thanks
    Dev

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