r/IndiaInvestments
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  • Introduction
  • Disclaimers and Disclosures
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Mutual Funds and ETFs
      • What is the best mutual fund app for investments?
      • Why should I invest in Direct Plans instead of Regular Plans?
      • What’s the best mutual fund I can invest in?
      • Which date(s) is/are best for SIP in a month?
      • I’ve to invest in ELSS for 80C tax saving. Which fund(s) should I pick?
      • Should I get a Demat Account to buy units in Mutual Funds?
      • Lumpsum investment vs SIP/DCA
      • Why are Index Funds in India not as cheap as Vanguard's Index Funds and ETFs?
    • Insurance
      • Should I invest in this LIC policy?
      • Opinions on investing in smart wealth plan by bank?
      • Up to what age should I take term cover?
      • Do I need my own health insurance? Employer already has group policy
      • Should I take top-up policy or super top-up?
      • Is it worth paying extra premium for term insurance?
    • Stocks
      • Should I invest in smallcase?
      • What is the best app for buying or trading stocks?
      • Which screener(s) should I use?
      • The Stock Market Has Crashed. Which Stocks Should I Buy?
    • Foreign Investing
      • Why should I invest in the US markets?
      • How should I invest in US equity?
    • Tax
      • I don't have any tax to pay. Do I still have to file ITR?
    • Miscellaneous
      • Where can I park money for a few days, a few months, or a few years?
      • What are chit funds? Should I invest?
      • Is Gold a good investment now? It has gone up ~50% this year
  • How To
    • How To
    • How to transfer shares from one demat account to another
    • How to move from one mutual fund platform to another
    • How to switch a Mutual Fund from Regular to Direct Plan
    • How to file SEBI SCORES complaint?
    • How to Update Nominee Details?
    • How to rematerialize mutual fund from demat form
    • How to Pay Advance Tax
  • STOCKS
    • Introduction to the Stocks Series
    • Can You Beat the Market?
    • Reading an Annual Report
    • Researching a Sector
    • Financial Metrics and Ratios
      • Profitability
    • Using Screeners
    • Due-Diligence Checklist
    • Work in Progress
      • Diving Deeper into Businesses
      • Efficiency
      • Liquidity and Solvency
  • EXCEL
    • Excel for Fun and Profit
    • Reactive UI & Updates
    • Using External Data : Google Finance
    • Using External Data : Working with CSV Format
      • CSV Format
      • Computing LTCG Eligible Equity Units
      • Process for Estimating Tax
    • Quantifying Returns: CAGR and XIRR
      • CAGR: Point-to-Point Annualized Returns
      • A Gentle Introduction to XIRR
      • A Rigorous Introduction to XIRR
  • BONDS
    • Bond Basics
    • Government Securities
    • Corporate Bonds
  • MISCELLANEOUS
    • Miscellaneous
    • US Investing
    • Recommended Reading
  • New to Investing
    • Zero to Investing
      • Getting Started
      • Part Two - Defensive Setup
      • Part Three - Spending Pattern
      • Part Four - How to Invest
    • Investment Philosophy and Strategy
      • Basics of Investment Strategy Plan
      • A simple Financial Planning Roadmap
      • Various types of Risks in Investments
      • Are you a Stock or Bond?
      • Assets and Asset Allocation
      • Critical Mass
      • Asset Rebalancing
      • Lumpsum or SIP/STP
    • Insurance
      • Life
        • Life Insurance: What it is exactly?
        • How to Evaluate Life Insurance Needs
        • ULIP - Unit Linked Insurance Plan
        • Some FAQs on Life Insurance
        • Links to Answers related to Life Insurance
      • Health
      • Others: Disability / Home
      • Child Plan
    • All About Mutual Funds
      • What is a Mutual Fund?
      • Types of Mutual Funds
      • What and Why of Mutual Fund Ratings
      • How to Select a Mutual Fund
      • FAQs for Mutual Funds
      • SIP and Mandates
      • How to Become Crorepati using Mutual Funds
      • Analysis using long term equity and debt funds in India
    • Retirement
      • Primer on Retirement Planning
      • Why You should not Opt for a Readymade Pension Plan
      • Studies of Long Term Portfolios and Retirement Withdrawal Rate Suggestions
      • Do-It-Yourself Retirement Plan
    • Personal Finance
    • Behavioral Biases
    • ELI5 Series
      • Time Value of Money
      • Inflation
      • Life Insurance
      • ELI5 guide to Selecting an Equity Mutual Fund
      • How do I start investing in mutual funds [ELI5 series]
      • Mis-selling of Insurance Products
  • BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO INVESTING
    • Zero To Investing
      • The First Step - Emergency Fund
      • The Final Step - Mutual Funds
  • Contributors Section
    • How Can I Start Contributing?
    • What is a Contributor License Agreement and why are we using it?
      • Contributor License Agreement
    • How to link FAQ via bot in Discord
    • Style Guides
      • General Style Guide
      • FAQ Style Guide
      • How To Style Guide
      • Excel Series Style Guide
      • Stocks Style Guide
  • Discord and Reddit
    • How to Search the Wiki From Discord
    • I'm unable to send messages to stocks-fundamentals channel on Discord. Why?
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  1. FAQs
  2. Insurance

Should I invest in this LIC policy?

Avoid. LIC and the agent would take most of it. You'd be left with peanuts. It's one of the most opaque form of investments, and there's no guarantee. Govt. backs LIC, not your financial future.

LIC doesn't create money out of thin air. Over-simplified & shortened description of how it works: It collects premium from policyholders, then it invests that in market-linked securities (bonds, stocks, CP, CD, commodities etc.). Eventually, it pays out policyholders after keeping some cut for itself.

Unlike bank or post-office deposits, LIC returns are not legally guaranteed. Govt. of India is a major stakeholder in LIC, but that does not mean it's a major stakeholder in your future. Govt. would do its best to prevent LIC from going under. But your returns come at the cost of LIC's income - when those two are at odds with each other, Govt. would pick LIC over your financial future.

In practice, LIC returns money you'd paid as premium + some bonus. There are different categories of these bonuses: loyalty bonus, guaranteed addition etc. LIC wants to make you feel they're doing you a favor by giving you some bonus. Historically, a bank FD / RD at SBI would have had higher returns than LIC policy over a given period.

You can know your bonus after the policy matures.

LIC is also not allowed to invest freely. They are the largest financial services company in the country, and have much more cash than any other financial institution, that they can invest. However, large corpus of few lakh crores are not easy to invest. So they have to look for distressed assets, or wait for really bad market condition before deploying sizeable chunk of that cash.

There's also political interference to consider - as evident from LIC's bailout of IDBI bank. LIC's hands are tied, in when it comes to where they can / cannot invest.

Over long enough period of time, LIC returns have also significantly underperformed equity market returns, namely Nifty & Sensex Total Return Index.

Now, consider various charges on insurance (mortality charges, admin fees, risk premium etc.). These are not shown to you (the end policyholders); but these eat away your corpus and line up LIC's pockets.

Your agent would tell you to invest in LIC policy, because that helps him earn commission. Your parents would pressure you into doing it, because most likely they'd not be aware of other investment options.

The fact that it has tax benefits is of little concern, because gains from LIC policies are so low, taxing it won't make much difference in final corpus size, post-tax.

At its core, an LIC policy is an insurance policy. The cover provided by this insurance is inadequate, to take care of your family's financial needs in your absence. A pure term cover is better, which works very different from how a typical LIC policy works.

But none of the above covers real problem with an LIC policy - it locks you into a lifelong decision much early on. For a lot of people, who had subscribed to LIC policies 20-25 years ago, and seeing their policies maturing now - the maturity amount is probably not even worth a month's income.

Due to inflation, the maturity estimate which might look huge today, would be much lower in value, upon actual maturity.

These premiums cannot be changed once you start paying for a policy. You have no option of stepping up your premiums as your salary increases year on year.

Overall, an LIC policy is rigid, wasteful, and doesn't provide adequate coverage. Tax benefits are not good enough to offset the opportunity cost (i.e. you're missing out on other efficient assets and time).

Avoid LIC policies, buy vanilla pure term cover, and invest in efficient market-linked transparent assets yourself. If your question is but what if markets don't do well in next 15-20 years?, then the LIC policy also has same fate.

Addendum

The general perception of the term "LIC policy" is any moneyback/endowment policy, in which there is some investment component also, i.e. after the end of the term of the policy, you will get money returned back to you. There are pure protection plans available by LIC and other insurance companies, which are what are recommended. In case of LIC, these are Jeevan Amar and Jeevan Tech Term. All others are some combination of moneyback plans.

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Last updated 3 years ago

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