May 17, 2008 07:57 AM
45180 Views
(Updated Jun 13, 2010 11:35 PM)
The more I read about personal finance, the more convinced I become that the first plan one should buy is term plan. A term plan is a plan which is pure protection plan i.e. it gives monetary protection to your family members only when you are no more. If you survive the plan duration, you get nothing. Term plan are cheapest plans in the sense that you buy protection at very small premium. E.g. to buy a cover of Rs 30 Lakh, I needed to shell out Rs. 8500 per year. You can't get such kind of protection at less than Rs. 10000 with any plan other than term plan.
It becomes a "must have cover" especially if you are a young couple and you have family dependents. When I was bachelor, I used to think that when I am no more living, I don't care about the financial health of the family after me. Once I became father, it got pretty clear to me that if something happens to me, there should be a decent sum that my family must get to keep going on with the life. Hence I started searching for the term plan that would be cheapest in terms of premium for a given amount of cover say 30 Lakh.
SBI Life, Birla Sun Life, LIC are 3 players which offer the term plans for minimum premium. I almost decided to go with SBI Life when I got a call from Birla Sun Life and they asked for my 15 minutes. And they turned the table in their favour.
Why? Because of their plan which is called "Birla Sun Life Dream Plan". This plan doesn't fall under the "Term Plan" category but it gives you the same monetary protection at less than the rate other companies charge for their term plans. In addition, it gives back you the premiums at the end of the policy duration. Generally, I would recommend everyone that one must buy a decent amount(ideally the cover should be 5 times your annual income) insurance cover. Particularly, I would recommend this plan because it beats every other plan available in the market currently.provides good information about the importance of term plan.