LiveMint has an article by Monika Halan and Deepthi Bhaskaran talking about how investors lost Rs. 1.5 trillion (150,000 crore) rupees due to mis-selling. I’m however not convinced by their number argument, that investors lost 1.5 trillion rupees. The way they arrive by the numbers is: Take all regular premium policy premium (first year, plus [...]

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Insurers seem to be getting lesser new business, as new premiums (single premium policies + new regular premium policies) drop 4.2% in the first half of the year. Last year, new policy premiums had fallen over 20% . (Source: IRDA and individual insurer disclosures) Some of the top insurers (HDFC, ICICI, Bajaj) have picked up [...]

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Unit Linked Insurance Policies tend to be very complex and highly loaded with costs. But some policies have looked good in theory, but they turn out to be dud performers anyhow. In an email conversation I was referred to an excellent analysis of ULIP costs by RRK which talked about how ULIP costs could actually [...]

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It turns out(*) that the new guidelines for ULIPs in 2010 have claimed another victim: Cover Continuance. The concept, prior to September 2010: if you bought a ULIP and stopped paying premiums after say 5 years, you could choose to continue to have …

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A small story at Yahoo on the choice: Ulips or Mutual Funds. (Posted in entirety) It was the day they’d talked about 9 years ago. The first day of 2011. “I’m on my way.” Ganesh Raghupathi sighed. He had known Arnold would be late. But then…

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Reader S writes in: Hey Deepak, I am invested in 2 ULIPS. 1) Birla Sun Life SaralWealth : 35800 anually since Feb 2010 ( paid 1 premiums) current fund value is 25629. 2) Birla sun life Dream Plan: 12000 anually since Jan 2009 ( pai…

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(This is an article I wrote recently, so here you go!) The new ULIP regime is here, and insurers must be balking in fear. The changes? Spread commissions over the lock-in period of the scheme, the minimum of which is now five years from the earlier th…

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IRDA, the regulator I have torn into over ULIPs, has started to get investor friendly. And how! The latest piece is a notification for early surrender. If you stop payment on your policy – regardless of when you do so – your policy will be conside…

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I’m just working through my inbox and at least 200 emails are still pending, with people asking me what I suggest they do about their policies. The requests come with a varying degree of detail, some with details of how much has been invested and wha…

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My latest at Yahoo!: The ULIP war on the topic of the week, ULIPs. The turf war between the Insurance Regulator (IRDA) and the Securities Regulator (SEBI) is finally over. The government, on June 19th, passed an ordinance that granted full regulato…

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