Best Life Insurance Plans In India For 2023

• ABSLI Fixed Maturity Plan: Best Overall
• HDFC Click 2 Protect Plus: Best comprehensive term insurance plan
• Max Life Smart Secure Plus: Best plan with coverage against major critical illnesses.
• Aegon Life iInvest: Best unit-linked insurance plan
• LIC New Jeevan Anand Plan: Best endowment and whole life insurance policy
• SBI Life- eShield Next: Best term insurance plan with maximum benefits
• Edelweiss Tokio Life Flexi-Savings Plan: Best customizable life insurance plan

While evaluating and choosing the top life insurance policies in India, Forbes Advisor analyzed these policies on the basis of four parameters, and added weightage as follows:

• Life Coverage (30%) – Life insurance companies agree to pay the nominees the insured sum in case of death of a policyholder, or upon completion of the policy term.
• Policy Tenure (20%) – Every policy comes with a certain duration or term, ranging from one to 100 years, which you must decide at the time of buying the plan as per your requirement and financial needs.
• Additional Benefits/ Optional Riders (40%) – Life insurance policy comes with benefits or optional riders including benefits such as accidental, disability, child support, critical illness rider.
• Claim Settlement Ratio (10%) – The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) determines the percentage of claims settled by insurance providers out of the total claims.

A life insurance policy is a contract between an insurer and the insured, where the insurer pays to the beneficiary of the insured a specific amount upon the demise of an insured or after a specific period. To avail this benefit, the insured has to pay a fixed certain amount to the insurance company at regular intervals or at once, which is known as “premium”.

In some life insurance policies, apart from death benefit, the insured also gets an advantage of maturity benefit, where money is paid back to the insured at the end of the policy term, if he survives the policy term.

So, in short, we can broadly categorize life insurance policies into two segments: life protection plans and life protection and savings plans. Let’s have a look at different types of life insurance policies which fall into the above two mentioned categories.

We can broadly categorize life insurance policies into two segments: life protection plans and life protection and savings plans. Let’s have a look at different types of life insurance policies which fall into the above two mentioned categories.

Term insurance: Term insurance is one of the simplest and purest forms of life insurance policy. Here, the policyholder gets the huge sum assured coverage against a very nominal premium amount. The policyholder’s beneficiary gets the death benefit if the policyholder dies before the maturity of the policy. Term insurance does not offer any kind of maturity benefits and any investment returns, which is why they are comparatively cheaper than other kinds of life insurance plans.

Unit-Linked Insurance Plans or ULIPs: A ULIP plan is designed to offer you the dual benefit of insurance and investment under a single plan. This plan comes with a lock-in-period of five years and thus it is regarded as a long-term policy. The ULIP also facilitates the right balance of your funds as per the market conditions. One can surely purchase a ULIP plan to fulfill their long-term goals such as child’s marriage or their education, buying a home, among others.

Endowment plans: Endowment policies offer the benefit of life coverage and savings at the same time. These plans aim to provide you the death and maturity benefit as well. The maturity benefit is provided to the policyholder, if they survive the policy tenure.

Money Back policy: As most of the life insurance policies provide you the returns only after a long-stipulated period which is till their tenure ends, but money back policies are designed to refund money back regularly and thus it plays a crucial role in solving the issue of liquidity. These returns are the fixed percentage of sum assured which is given to you throughout the tenure of policy. Thus, a policyholder does not have to wait to get their returns till maturity.

Whole Life insurance: These kinds of policies provide the death benefit along with the maturity benefit and where the life coverage is provided up to the whole life which is 100 years of age. This simply means, the policyholder is eligible to receive maturity benefits even if they cross 100 years of age. The best part about the whole life policy is that you are required to pay a premium amount only up to a certain year while you receive the benefits for your entire life.

Child Insurance Plans: Such a plan helps you meet your child’s financial requirement, which can be their further education or marriage. These are the insurance cum investment plans which are bought by the policyholder since the birth of their child.

Retirement Plans: As the name suggests, These plans help you meet financial needs post your retirement. Policyholders can create wealth over a certain period of time, which will be given back to them as regular income payouts just like pension. In case of the demise of the policyholder, these benefits are given to the nominee of the policyholder as the lumpsum amount or as regular payouts, whichever option has been chosen at the time of purchasing the policy.

Here’s a list of Life Insurance Companies in India:

1. Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC)
2. HDFC Life Insurance
3. Max Life Insurance
4. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance
5. TATA AIA Life Insurance
6. Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance
7. Aditya Birla SunLife Insurance
8. SBI Life Insurance
9. Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance
10. PNB MetLife India Insurance
11. Aviva Life Insurance
12. Reliance Nippon Life Insurance
13. Shriram Life Insurance
14. Bharti AXA Life Insurance
15. Future Generali India Life Insurance
16. Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance
17. Ageas Federal Life Insurance
18. Aegon Life Insurance
19. Pramerica Life Insurance
20. IndiaFirst Life Insurance
21. Star Union Dai-Ichi Life Insurance
22. Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance

• Age while buying the insurance policy (Early the better)
• Gender of the applicant (female tends to pay lower premium rates than male)
• Smoking habits of the applicant (smoking habit increases the premium amount)
• Overall health condition of the applicant (poor health and pre-existing diseases can increase premiums)
• Lifestyle of the applicant (bad lifestyle habits and risky activities can increase premiums)
• Family medical history (chronic illness in relatives can raise premiums)

Here’s a step by step process to help you buy a life insurance policy in India, as follows:

Step 1: Visit the official webpage of an insurance company.

Step 2: Go to “Life Insurance”, and select the type of insurance plan which you wish to buy.

Step 3: Evaluate the life insurance policies offered under a specific category.

Step 4: Submit all necessary information such as personal details, like date of birth, gender, contact, etc.

Step 5: Carry out the payment process online.

Step 6: You will receive the policy document at your registered email address.

Insurers provide online premium calculators to help you determine the premium of your life insurance policy. This way you will know exactly how much premium had to be paid to receive the particular amount of sum assured coverage. All you need follow a below-mentioned simple steps, such as:

• Personal Details such as name, gender, age or annual income, etc.
• Information such as sum assured coverage, policy tenure and premium payment duration.
• Select add-on riders such as accidental cover, critical illness, etc.

Premium calculator helps you compare various life insurance plans to help you make an informed decision to buy the most appropriate life insurance policy as per your goals and needs.

Here are the list of documents you need to submit, as follows:

• Identity Proof: Voter ID, Driving License, PAN Card, Passport, or Aadhar Card.
• Age Proof: Driving License, Passport, Birth Certificate, Voter ID.
• Address Proof: Telephone Bill, Ration Card, Electricity Bill, Driving License, and Passport.
• Income Proof: Form 16, ITR (2-3 years), salary slips (last 3 to 6 months).

The life insured can file the claim in two instances: Death Claim and Maturity Claim. Let’s see the process of filling the claim for both such instances:

Death Claim Settlement Process:

• Beneficiaries should notify the life insurance company about the claim.
• Submit required documents such as claim form and death certificate, hospital report, etc.
• Claim gets settled once the insurance company approves the paperwork.

Maturity Claim Settlement Process:

• Insured receives maturity benefits upon survival of the policy period.
• You receive a discharge voucher via email or post.
• You need to sign and send back the voucher and original policy agreement to the insurance provider.
• The insurer initiates the claim settlement process.
• The policy ceases to exist once the insured receives the claim amount.