Term insurance is a life insurance product offered by an insurance company which offers financial coverage to the policy holder for a specific time period. In case of death of the insured individual during the policy term, the death benefit is paid by the company to the beneficiary.

The basic differentiating feature of term insurance is that unlike other types of life insurance policies, a term insurance policy is less expensive since it does not have any cash value.

The policy comes useful only if the policyholder dies within the timeframe during which the term insurance policy is in force.

• Death Benefits: Term insurance plans offer death benefits to designated nominees. The nominees will receive these death benefits, if the life assured dies within the policy tenure.
• Maturity Benefits: Normally, traditional life insurance policies don’t offer maturity benefits. But term return of premium life insurance policies offer maturity benefits by returning the total amount of premiums paid so far, provided a policy is continued till the end of term.
• Tax Benefits: A policyholder can enjoy tax benefits over the premiums paid for term life insurance plans with maturity benefits. The premiums paid and the amount received are exempted from income tax assessment.
• Term life insurance plans with maturity benefits also offer additional riders such as Critical Illness and Accidental Death or Disability riders.
• Term life insurance plans come at affordable premiums rates.

It offers the dual benefit of insurance and investment. A certain part of the premium is allocated towards the sum assured, while the remaining portion of the premium gets invested in asset markets— equities and debt.

It pays a lump sum amount after the specified duration or on the death of the policyholder, whichever is earlier. An endowment policy may declare bonus periodically, which is paid, either on maturity or on the death of the insured.

Key Benifits of Endowment Policy:

• Endowment plans, thus, fulfill the dual need for a life cover and savings under a single plan. They are one of the traditional forms of life insurance plans available in the Indian market.
• Endowment policies are basically of two types - with profit and without profit. Within these two classes there are many variations of endowment plans structured to meet the need of child education, whole life protection and pension, among others.

In ULIP, a portion of the premium goes towards providing the life cover, while the residual portion is invested in equities and debts.

The investment portion in ULIP is subject to market volatility. Investing in ULIP inculcates regular saving habit in a person, which is imperative for the creation of wealth.

Key Benifits of ULIPs:

• Flexible: ULIPs offer investors the option of switching between funds, resulting in better choices to the investor. Investors can choose to invest in either debt or equity funds depending on their risk appetite and market conditions.
• Tax benefits: With ULIPs being life insurance products, they offer tax benefits in the form of tax free maturity. However this tax benefit depends on the type of ULIP invested, as equity funds could be taxed 15% under certain conditions.
• Low charges: ULIPs do not have high charges associated with them. IRDA has capped the annual charge on ULIPs at 2-2.25% p.a. for the initial 10 years, with the charges on par with those of mutual funds.
• Long term investment:ULIPs are a long term investment option due to the increased lock-in period which also reap bigger returns.

Money back plans protect your family's financial interests from circumstances such as death or critical illness of the policyholder. Periodic payouts create wealth for meeting financial commitments at key stages in life.

Money back plans are one of the more popular life insurance plans in India. Under these plans, the policyholders receive frequent payouts as the death benefit, in case the policyholder survives.

Key Benifits of Money Back Life Insurance:

• Death benefit: UIf the policyholder dies during the policy term, the nominee will get 10 times of annualized premium or 125% of the Basic Sum Assured, vested simple reversionary bonuses and final additional bonus. Also, the periodical survival benefits which have been paid will not be deducted.
• Survival Benefits: If the policyholder survives the policy term, the nominee will receive 20% of the Basic Sum Assured at the end of each of 5th, 10th & 15th policy year and 40% of Sum Assured in addition to accrued bonuses.
• Maturity Benefit: If the Life Assured survives till maturity, 40% of the Basic Sum Assured in addition to simple reversionary bonuses and final additional bonus will be paid.

Offering the dual benefit of insurance and investment, whole life insurance plans offer insurance cover for the whole life of the person or up to 100 years whichever is earlier.

Also the life insurance company calculates bonus on the sum assured, which is paid to the nominee after the death of the policyholder.

Key Benifits:

• Protection till age 100 years:The plan offers you guaranteed protection for life till age 100 years, which continues to grow through bonuses.
• Flexible premium payment terms: The plan offers you flexibility to choose your premium payment terms that suits your requirement. You can choose either 10, 15 or 20 years as your premium payment term, depending on your financial goals.
• Flexible Bonus Options: Bonus declared is used to purchase additional sum assured that helps you boost the maturity value through power of compounding.

The increasing education cost is causing uneasiness among parents. Therefore, it is best to invest in a good child insurance plan to give secured life to your child even in your absence.

A child life insurance plan offers a lump-sum amount to the beneficiary (i.e. child) on the death of the policyholder. Here, the policy doesn’t end. In this case, Life Insurance Company exempts all future premiums and pays the money to the child at specified intervals as planned out by the policyholder.

Key Benifits:

• Accelerated Benefit Plan:in this option, you would receive Sum Assured + Bonuses on the policy maturity or on earlier death
• Maturity Benefit Plan: this option ensures that you receive the Sum Assured + Bonuses on the policy maturity. Hence if the Life Insured dies within the policy tenure, then nothing is payable immediately, however future premiums are waived off and paid by the insurance company so that the entire maturity benefit is paid when due.
• Double Benefit Plan: in this option you would receive double benefit, i.e. you would definitely receive the Sum Assured + Bonuses when the policy matures. Over and above that, if the Life Insured dies within the policy tenure, the Sum Assured is again paid and the policy continues.

these are offered by life insurance companies to help an individual build a retirement corpus. This money helps a person to lead a financially secured life even after retirement.

In case of an unfortunate death of the policyholder, the nominee can either take a lump sum or receive a regular pension for the rest of the policy tenure.

These life insurance plans are great to build up a retirement corpus, Most life insurance companies in India provide a wide array of plans for people to save for their retirement.

Key Benifits:

• Guaranteed Bonus:Guaranteed bonus will be applicable only to in-force policies.
• Maturity Benefit Plan: this option ensures that you receive the Sum Assured + Bonuses on the policy maturity. Hence if the Life Insured dies within the policy tenure, then nothing is payable immediately, however future premiums are waived off and paid by the insurance company so that the entire maturity benefit is paid when due.
• Death Benefit: Higher of total premiums paid accumulated at an interest rate of 0.25% p.a. compounded annually plus vested reversionary bonus plus terminal bonuses, if any or 105% of total premiums paid.
• Flexibility: You can defer the vesting date upto age of 70 years or extend the accumulation / deferment$ period of your policy