With the market already full of ULIPS that inflicted losses on the savers, here’s another product that joins the category. Will it be any better than the existing ones?

Moneylife Digital Team

HDFC Life Insurance has launched a single premium ULIP (unit linked insurance product) plan named “Invest Wise”, which is an investment product aimed at saving for long-term goals, such as for children’s education and marriage or else investors’ own retirement planning. Targeted towards its so called “Wisdom Investor” segment, the plan is meant for the age group of 45 to 70 years with a fixed term of 15 years and offers a five-fund option for investment. The settlement options include withdrawal of funds in various patterns included the one for five years. The sum assured is fixed at 1.1 times the premium. There is no cap on the premium.

Since the sum assured is low, more of the premium money would be directed towards investment, which means more returns at withdrawal or maturity. Also, since the term is fixed, investors should be able to align the plan to the life goals they wish to fulfil through it.

In case death happens before 60, the sum assured minus withdrawals made in two years proceeding the year of death or the fund value, whichever is higher, would be paid. However, in case of death after 60, all withdrawals will be deducted from the sum assured for comparison with the fund value.

Many such plans exist in the market, the only minor difference being that this plan would invest in more market-oriented instruments compared to the other child or retirement ULIPS. In other words, this seems to be a me-too product with little difference. The bigger issue is that we are never sure how the corpus would grow over time.