Term Insurance Guide India: How Much Cover You Need

Buy term, not a bundled product. Endowment plans and ULITs mix insurance with investment and generally do both badly - the cover is thin and the returns lag a plain index fund. Keeping protection and investment separate gives more of both for the same money.

On policy term: cover until 60 or 65, not 85. Insurance replaces income that dependants rely on. Once children are earning and the mortgage is cleared, that need falls away, and paying for cover into your eighties is expensive protection against a risk that has largely gone.

Before buying: 1. Disclose everything - smoking, drinking, conditions, family history. Non-disclosure is the main reason genuine claims fail. 2. Check the claim settlement ratio, and complaint data alongside it. 3. Consider adding critical illness or disability riders, which cover events that stop your income without ending your life. 4. Tell your family the policy exists and where the documents are, which is the step most often forgotten.