There are a few words which when a financial planner says looks cool. If my planner said them to me, I would look for a new planner! What are the words? 1. I will give clear, and UNBIASED advice! After 30 years in the trenches of the financial services industry I have not been able […]

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The IRDA has come out with a new law which says the life insurance sales guys should ask a lot of questions BEFORE a customer fills up or BUYS a life insurance policy. For some of us in the life insurance business it was quite obvious that these questions should be asked. I must say […]

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Today sadly, there is no pension plan which meets all your requirements. For example Templeton and UTI (both asset management companies) have a pension plan – and it is a one size fits all type of a plan. Typically a pension plan should have various options at the ACCUMULATION stage – when a person is […]

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“No ulip has given REAL returns in the past 10 years” – said one analyst. I have no clue about the accuracy of this statement. His argument was even for those who started in 2002 and were in the boom, only HALF their money participated in the boom (thanks to the high charges). When the […]

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Thanks to my degree, having been a member at the exchanges (albeit corporate), and having been in training, I keep meeting CXOs of mutual funds, reporters and journalists, life insurance companies – and a couple of times even banks. Amazing how they can say the same thing… – invest for the long term -‘I am […]

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Well this is not about Animal farm. It is about the state of the life insurance industry in India. Let us see the imaginary conversation between the LIC and Ministry of Finance. LIC: Good morning sir. Here is a cheque for the IPO Government Nonsense Ltd.’s public issue for Rs. 8000 crores. I hope the […]

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The life insurance industry is in bad shape. Their past sins of over charging the customer are visiting them, and real hard. The Irda made some changes, the Income tax made some changes, they themselves made some mistakes, the customer unfortunately woke up, ….so in fine the industry is in trouble. So here is a […]

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