Jan 07, 2005 05:54 PM
12468 Views
(Updated Jan 07, 2005 05:54 PM)
ICICI Prudential is the largest private sector insurance company in India. It is the second largest in the same segment, just next to the collossus called LIC, Life Insurance Corporation of India. Their head quarter is in Pravadevi, Mumbai.
After the Indian economy was opened up for a broader participation in 1991, the insurance sector has seen some significant changes. (How it impacted LIC, I shall cover in another review) Several financial institutions tied up with overseas insurance companies and fought for a market share in Indian economy. Some very prominent tie-ups were ICICI with Prudential, Bajaj with Allianz, Birla with Sun Life, Sundaram with Royal, Tata with AIG, American Insurance Group. This partnership benefitted all the participants: the foreign companies could have a bigger market using the knowledge of local economy/policies of the Indian players; the Indian players were benefitted by the tremendous expertise of the foreign companies in matters related to insurance; the policy holders were benefitted by being empowered to choose for a variety of options, and increased visibility of the market.
The best part of ICICI prudential is their focus on individual clients. In my particular case, after I bought my policy, immediately after the advisor (from whom I bought the policy) quit from ICICI Prudential. Nevertheless, they assigned another advisor to look into my case of first premiums. They also send premium payment notices/reminders.
They have a wide array of policies, and some of them are market-linked. In that way, you need not participate in the stock market directly, and yet have an advantage of shares. Several people are not comfortable dealing with shared directly. They can have the market linked policies and enjoy tax benefits too. Until recently, the dividends were taxed.
Note that you cannot mandate a credit card payment for market linked plans. The logic is: card mandate takes some days. This was a miscommunication that was sent once, but later rectified.
The bad thing about them is that they do not issue an advance premium notice. Given that, the policy holders can place that and claim tax exemption.
