Now a days Life Insurances are considered more as a savings or investment instrument. People flock to insurance policies at the end end of financial year to save tax. What so ever we have to vigilant about the instruments and policies we invest in , if we are hurried.
 Insurance agents will come to you and say ' please sir invest in this policy, your money will be doubled or trippled every two or three year. Ask them ' sir we want insurance and safety of o0ur money not 'Kuber's Khajana' .Looking at the market conditon if at all we are bound to take one insurance policy having an investment and insurance factor both, we should be care full how and what we chosse. Investing in insurance policies which invest in stock market will give us good return in long term, but we should have some safer insurance policies whic do not participate in market and still give us good returns. It is a traditional plan.
  One such plan is  " ICICI Pru Guaranteed Savings Insurance Plan " or popularly known as "GSip" plan.

  The benifits of the plan are.
  
  • Limited pay: You have a choice of paying premiums for either 7 or 10 years, while enjoying a long term savings benefit under the plan.
  • Guaranteed benefits: Receive guaranteed benefit at the end of the policy term in form of Guaranteed Maturity Benefit (GMB) (conditions apply*)
    • In the beginning, the GMB would be equal to sum of all premiums payable under the plan.
    • This GMB would increase every year by guaranteed Regular Additions (RA), to increase your savings payable at maturity of plan. The Regular Addition expressed as a percentage of the SA, will be declared at the beginning of every policy year Year 2010-11

      Regular Addition

      October'10 - December'10

      3.9%

      January'11 - March'11

      4.1%

      Regular Addition (RA) mentioned above is a percentage of the Sum Assured.
  • Additional maturity benefit: Receive additional amount in form of Maturity Addition (MA) at the end of the policy term.
  • Death Benefit:Receive a Guaranteed Death Benefit (GDB) equal to the sum of all premiums paid till date compounded at the rate of 5 percent per annum (conditions apply*)
  • Easy to purchase: Easy and hassle free application process with no medical underwriting.
  • Tax benefits: Tax benefits on the premium paid and benefits received under the policy, as per the prevailing Income Tax laws.
*RA will accrue at the end of each policy year. It will be disclosed at the start of that policy year. The RA shall be calculated as percentage of the SA. This percentage is guaranteed to be 50% of the annualised gross redemption yield (GRY) of the 10-year G-Sec, rounded down to the lower 0.2%,as at the Review Date immediately preceding the start of the policy year. The Review Date shall be the 7th of the first month of every quarter. In case the 7th is not a working day, the GRY of the next working day shall be considered for this purpose.
The Brochure of the plan is below  

gsip_brochure_final.pdf
File Size: 140 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

6/15/2011 12:54:32 am

Reply
1/30/2012 10:21:47 am

If you are looking for something to buy from an insurance company try fixed annuities. Guaranteed income for life.
Never heard of the GSip plan.

Reply
Mr Investor
2/12/2012 05:38:06 pm

In my personal opinion it’s a waste. May be a simple FD will give you better.

1. This is no insurance. In case of claim, only the amount you paid and 5% compounded interest. If you make FD you will get better even after paying taxes its 6.219% compounded on amount paid.
Get a Guaranteed Death Benefit (GDB) (Conditions Apply ) which is sum
of all premiums paid till date compounded at the rate of 5 percent per
annum
2. They say FD rate can go down. So is their regular addition (which they don’t tell, and project is as high and constant). I will assume mostly they will go up and down with same rate.
Regular Additions (RA)
This guaranteed addition, expressed as a percentage of the SA, will
be declared at the beginning of every policy year

Regular Addition (RA): The RA will accrue at the end of each policy
year. It will be disclosed at the start of that policy year. The RA shall be
calculated as percentage of the SA. This percentage is guaranteed to be
50% of the annualised gross redemption yield (GRY) of the 10-year G-Sec,
rounded down to the lower 0.2%,as at the Review Date immediately
preceding the start of the policy year. The Review Date shall be the 7th of
the first month of every quarter. In case the 7th is not a working day, the
GRY of the next working day shall be considered for this purpose.

According to their projection if I pay 1L premium per year (i.e. 7L in total) I will just above 14L after 15Yrs (suggested by their agent to whom I met recently). Here they assumed constant 4.5% addition (i.e. 9% return on G-Sec which is on higher side for G-sec) (In Dec’11 actual rate of RA was 4.3%). I am sure if FD rates are going down then surely will be returns of 10 Yr G-sec so will be RA of GSIP.

So to make it apple to apple I will assume constant FD rate of 9% (30.9% tax each year so effective rate of 6.219% after tax adjustments). Let’s say we put 1L for 7 Yr and take out all money at end of 15Yrs.
1L invested for 15Yr @6.219%compounded ~= 2.47L
1L invested for 14Yr @6.219%compounded ~= 2.33L
1L invested for 13Yr @6.219%compounded ~= 2.19L
1L invested for 12Yr @6.219%compounded ~= 2.06L
1L invested for 11Yr @6.219%compounded ~= 1.94L
1L invested for 10Yr @6.219%compounded ~= 1.83L
1L invested for 9Yr @6.219%compounded ~= 1.72L

Total after 15Yrs 14.54L with all taxes paid for FD.

Other benefits of FD over GSIP:
1. No hard commitment. If you have more than 1L put it more. If you don’t have no loss like in GSIP where not paying premium will attract penalty/deductions.
2. If you want money before 15 Yrs (I am adding this point as its not insurance, you are only covered with amount that you paid), in GSIP there will be deductions from what you paid but in FD you will get it all.
3. After DTC tax don’t know how much will be tax benefit for payout as sum assured is only (max) 7x of annual premium.
4. Only guarantee made is RA is 50% of 10Yr GSec. No guarantee on how much maturity addition, just addition a high amount to artificially show returns higher.

I am not saying FD is very good investment instrument, but from calculations and other terms it seems GSIP is surely not better than FD by any angle.

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and calculation sharing with you. Use your own judgment. If I missed any point and mistake in calculation here please let me know, I will also love to invest in better plans ;-). I used the terms & conditions defined in their policy brochure at http://www.iciciprulife.com/public/Brochures/GSIP_brochure_FINAL.pdf

Reply
Moturi
2/21/2012 07:16:08 pm

Mr investor.......nice review.......which according to you is a safe policy for insurance and investment?

Reply
Mr Investor
2/24/2012 06:07:26 pm

According to me we should not mix investment & insurance. Take term insurance and invest seperately. I studied around 50 plans across companies & type (Endowmets/ULIP/ChildPlans etc). I concluded that if you do better if you take term insurance and invest in debt (instead of Endowment policies) and invest in Equity/good Mutual Funds (instead of ULIPs). If you want detailed suggestion on investments depending on your need, you can contact your investment advisor or you can contact Prof Bajaj at [email protected].

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