One of the best ways to secure your family’s future, even in your absence is to consider taking a term insurance plan. There are plenty of insurance companies and they are offering offline and online term insurance plans. Term Insurance Plans would come with low cost and the high sum assured and secures your family, even when you are not there in this world. What is Term Insurance Plan? How to pick-up best term insurance plan in India? Which are the Top & Best Term Plans in India for 2020 that have the highest claim settlement ratio?
Also Read: Best Health Insurance Policy in India for Family
What is Term Insurance Plan?
If you are aware about the Term insurance plan, skip this section.
Term insurance Plan is a simple insurance plan where if the insured dies, their family / nominee would get the sum assured. There is no maturity amount in the term insurance plan. These are insurance plans that have risk coverage only. One would not get any money back at maturity.
As per guidelines from IRDA, after 3 years from the date of policy, a claim cannot be rejected citing any reason. Hence, the claim settlement ratio is no more a major criteria in deciding the best term insurance plan. However, it still needs to be considered as one of the points while buying a term insurance plan.
Why do we need a term insurance plan?
The entire family, including children, would depend on te earning members in the family. What happens if the head of the family or earning member met with an accident and not in this world anymore? While the loss of the family member cannot be replaced with anything, it also impacts the financial status of the family. Such loss can affect child’s education, delay the daughter’s marriage and affect the daily life of a spouse. One of the best ways to secure from such sudden negative surprises in our life is to take Term Insurance Plan. Since term insurance plans come with low cost and provides high coverage of insurance, this is one of the best ways to secure your life. Earlier one used to think of LIC Policy when we talk about life insurance policy. Now there are several private insurance companies that are competing with LIC.
What are the benefits of Term Insurance Plans?
How we filtered Top and Best Term Insurance Plans in India for 2020?
There are various parameters that can be considered while picking up top and best term insurance plan in India. However, I have considered below key parameters while picking the right term insurance policy.
1) Insurance Claim Settlement Ratio (CSR): Though the CSR is not the only criteria, it is one of the important factor when you go for best term plan in India. As of 2017-2018, there are 68 insurance companies which are registered in India, out of which only 24 are in life insurance business. Out of them 10 companies have declared claim settlement ratio of >= 95%. CSR is insurance claims settled over the total insurance claims received by the insurance company during the year. Lower CSR means, the company is honoring lower claims than what it received and rejecting some claims. In future your family could be victim out of such rejected claims. I have filtered insurance companies that have a high claim settlement ratio of 95% to 100%.
2) Insurance Company Reputation: No one can tell you how good is an insurance company in India. The higher the duration of the insurance company registered or existence, it is better. Hence, we have filtered Insurance companies that have a good operating history of more than 5 years.
3) Additional Features in Term insurance plan: What about a good insurance company that do not offer useful features or benefits? No one would really want to opt for that. I have filtered Term insurance plan which have basic features + additional features that would be helpful for individuals who are planning to take term plans.
4) Plans with Low Premium: While Premium is not the only criteria in selecting an insurance plan; we have given preference to term insurance plans which are being offered at low premiums with more features.
One should check term insurance plan comparison before taking up a term insurance plan. You can buy term insurance online from respective insurance portals.
Should you check term insurance plans comparison at any insurance aggregators portals?
There are few portals like policybazaar.com or policyx.com that provides a comparison of term insurance plans. However, I felt sometimes these websites are biased. You can do the comparison of such plans on such aggregator portals, but you go and buy term insurance plans directly from insurance companies.
Top 7 Best Term Insurance Plans in India in 2020
Here are the Top 7 Best Term Insurance Plans for 2020. We are giving major features of these term insurance plans.
Top#1 – Max Life Term Insurance Plan Plus
Minimum Entry age is 18 Years and Maximum entry age is 60 years
Maximum maturity age is 70 Years.
Policy tenure is between 10 years and 50 years.
Minimum Sum Assured is Rs 25 Lakhs.
Maximum Sum Assured – Rs 100 Crores.
The premium payment mode can be monthly, quarterly, half yearly and annually.
Limited Premium payment option available where you can pay the premium for a limited period, however, enjoy term insurance plan for the entire tenure of the plan. You can save up to 30% of premiums of you opt for this.
Comprehensive Accident Benefit Rider available in this plan.
This plan is available in 3 coverage a) Basic Life Cover b) Basic Life Cover+Monthly cover c) Basic Term Plan Cover + Increasing Monthly Income
The claim settlement ratio in 2020 is 98.74%, which is highest among all insurance companies.
Its Basic Premium is approx. Rs 8,378 per annum (Excl taxes) for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for 1 Crore sum assured for basic life cover.
Its Basic Premium is approx. Rs 12,272 per annum (Excl taxes) for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for 1 Crore sum assured for Basic Life Cover + Increasign monthly income option.
Max Life Term Insurance plan is one of the good term insurance plans for 2020 which has high claim settlement ratio and comes with low premium.
Top#2 – LIC Tech Term Insurance Plan
Here are the features of the LIC Term Insurance Plan.
Minimum Entry age is 18 Years and Maximum entry age is 65 years
Risk Coverage is upto 80 years of age.
Policy tenure is between 10 years and 40 years.
Minimum Sum Assured is Rs 50 Lakhs.
Maximum Sum Assured – No limit.
It offers both level sum assured and increasing sum assured. In level sum assured, the sum assured is fixed throughout the policy period. However in increasing sum assured, Sum assured would increase year on year from 6th year to the 15th year and from there, these are constant beyond that period. However, the premiums would be high for such level sum assured options.
LIC Policy offers accidental death benefit rider which is optional and comes with additional premiums.
The claim settlement ratio in 2020 is 97.79%.
All kinds of death, including accidental deaths are covered under this plan except suicide during the first year.
One can propose on their own name only and cannot take on spouse name who is not working.
LIC policy offer flexible premium options like regular premiums (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly), single premium and limited period premium options
The premiums are little high in LIC. If you take LIC Tech Term Insurance plan for Rs 1 Crore and have opted for regular annual premium, in a simple sum assured, the premium works out to be Rs 5,368 for 20 years individual and for the 20 year policy term. It would be Rs 7,216 for 30 years individual and Rs 13,770 for 40 years individual. No discounts applied here. You can check LIC premium calculator to know the exact premium before opting.
NRIs can also apply when they are staying in India and term insurance plan is valid in the specified countries list.
Generally individuals who want to increase their sum assured have to buy a new term insurance plan with the additional sum assured. However, they can opt for increasing sum assured where the sum assured would be increased during the tenure.
LIC Tech Term Insurance Plan is one of the Best Life Insurance Policy in India in 2020 as it has brand value as well as trusted by Lakhs of people in India.
If you have any queries on LIC Tech Term plan, you can contact online_dmkt@licindia.com or call toll free number 1800 227 717 or landline numbers 022-26127303-05,022-67819282,022-67819284.
You can Review LIC Tech Term Insurance Plan here.
Top#3 – ICICI iProtect Smart Term Insurance Plan
Minimum Entry age is 18 Years and Maximum entry age is 65 years
Maximum maturity age is 99 Years.
Policy tenure is between 5 years and 40 years.
Minimum Sum Assured – Based on minimum premium of Rs 2,400 per annum.
Maximum Sum Assured – No limit.
There is optional rider that it pays if diagnosed of any of the 34 Critical Illnesses.
It comes with 4 levels of protection 1) Life 2) Life Plus 3) Life and Health and 4) All in one.
Claim settlement ratio in 2020 is 98.58%
Premium is approx. Rs 8,279 per annum for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for Rs 1 Crore sum assured. Accident death cover would cost Rs 2,803 additional premium for Rs 50 Lakhs Coverage and Critical illness cover cost Rs 15,569 for Rs 10 Lakhs coverage. These 2 are optional riders which you may consider based on your requirement.
I feel ICICI iProtect Term plan is one of the best online term insurance plan in India as it comes with several benefits and riders which are useful.
Top#4 – HDFC Click 2 Protect Plus Term Insurance Plan
Below are the major features of HDFC Click 2 Protect Plus Term plan.
Minimum Entry age is 18 Years and Maximum entry age is 65 years
Maximum maturity age is 85 Years.
Policy tenure is between 5 years and 40 years.
Minimum Sum Assured is Rs 10 Lakhs.
Maximum Sum Assured – No limit.
There are various options like Life Option, 3D Life Option, Extra Life Option, Life Long Protection Option, 3D Life long protection, Return of Premium Option etc. available in this plan.
The claim settlement ratio in 2020 is 99.04%.
The Basic Premium is approx. Rs 9,717 (Excl taxes) per annum for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for Rs 1 Crore sum assured (Lumpsum payout option).
If you take 3D Life that covers waiver of premiums in case of critical illnesses or premium waiver in case of permanent disability, the premium works out to be Rs 10,134 for similar details.
This Term plan has several riders which make this as a unique term insurance plan for 2020.
Top#5 – SBI Life eShield Term Insurance Plan
It comes with two plan options 1) Level Cover Benefit 2) Increasing cover benefit.
Minimum Entry age is 18 Years and Maximum entry age is 65 years for level cover benefit and 60 years for increasing cover benefit.
Maximum maturity age is 80 Years.
Policy tenure is between 5 years and 30 years.
Minimum Sum Assured is Rs 35 Lakhs.
Maximum Sum Assured – No limit.
There is inbuilt benefit “Accelerated Terminal Illness Benefit” available.
There are other riders available like a) Accidental Death Benefit Rider 2) Accidental Total and Permanent Disability Benefit Rider.
The claim settlement ratio in 2020 is 95.03%
The premium is approx. Rs 9,400 per annum (Excl taxes) for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for 1 Crore sum assured for Level Cover Benefit.
The premium is approx. Rs 11,720 per annum (Excl taxes) for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for 1 Crore sum assured for Increasing Cover Benefit plan.
SBI Life eShield Term Insurance plan is one of the best term insurance plan in India for 2020 which comes with inbuilt benefits and riders.
Top#6 – TATA AIA Life iRaksha Supreme Online Term Insurance Plan
There are 4 variants of term insurance plans offered by TATA AIA Life. One of the good plans with TATA AIA Life Insurance iRaksha Supreme Online Term insurance plan. Below are the major features of this plan.
Minimum Entry age is 18 Years and Maximum entry age is 70 years.
Maximum maturity age is 80 Years.
Policy tenure is between 10 years and 40 years.
Minimum Sum Assured is Rs 75 Lakhs.
Maximum Sum Assured – No limit.
The claim settlement ratio in 2020 is 98%.
Rate benefits for customers opting for higher level of protection (Sum Assured of Rs 75 Lacs & above).
The premium is approx. Rs 8,000 per annum for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for a sum assured of Rs 1 Crore.
Also Read: Which is the best LIC Term Insurance for 1 Crore?
Top#7 – Aditya Birla Sun Life DigiShield Plan
Minimum Entry age is 18 Years and Maximum entry age is 65 years
Maximum maturity age is 85 Years.
Policy tenure is between 10 years and 50 years.
Minimum Sum Assured is Rs 30 Lakhs.
Maximum Sum Assured – No limit.
There are 4 options available in plan 1) Level Sum Assured 2) Increasing Sum Assured.
There is inbuilt terminal illness benefit.
There are 4 optional riders 1) Accidental Death and Accident disability rider 2) Critical illness rider 3) Surgical Care Rider 4) Hospital Care Rider. However, these riders come with additional premiums.
You can add your spouse also to this term insurance plan along with you.
The claim settlement ratio in 2020 is 96.38%
The premium is approx. Rs 8,468 per annum for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for a sum assured of Rs 1 Crore for Level Sum assured plan.
The premium is approx. Rs 14,200 per annum for a 30 year non smoker for a 30 year policy for a sum assured of Rs 1 Crore for Increasing Sum assured plan.
Aegon Religare iTerm Insurance Plan recommended by us last year has company claim settlement ratio of 95% for FY2017-18, hence it is not in our list now (Since we are covering > 95% only in this list). If you have taken this term insurance plan earlier, you can continue this plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some of the FAQs
1) Why LIC Policy premiums are higher in term plans?
LIC has trusted brand and has high claim ratio. Owing to this, it charges higher premiums compared to private insurance companies
2) Which is the best life insurance policy in India for beginners?
For beginners or youngsters, the income could be low. In such case, considering low premium term plan in India from above list could be good idea to start.
3) Which Term Insurance is best in India for women?
Most of the above indicated term plans suits women. One can check whether there are discounted price on the premium for women before opting.
Conclusion: There are several good term insurance plans in India. None of us can predict the claim settlement ratio in the future. You should check term insurance comparison and the pick-up term plan that has features suitable to you. You can consider taking 2 term plans, e.g. Instead of 1 Crore Term plan from a single insurance company, you can take Rs 50 Lakhs each from two insurance companies to avoid any rejections in future of say 10 or 20 years down the line. Term Insurance plans are best which comes with low premiums and high risk coverage. This should be your first step in financial planning.
Readers, have you opted for any of the best life insurance policies in India? What are your experiences with your insurance company?
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(1) I am of 68 and want buy a new term plan. What are the options available? I am healthy and has no health issue.
(2) my wife of 64 Y 6 M has cardiac arythmmia of ventricular extrasystole. What are the chances of getting a term plan. Suggest a good company.