ICICI Prudential launched a new ULIP plan  LifeStage Assure. This plan can be used as substitute for a Pure Insurance (equivalent to Term Plan) + an Investment Plan. The death benefit is Sum Assured + the Fund value. There is no upper limit on the Sum Assured , however there are no riders available in this policy (such as Critical Illness, Accidental Disability/Death Benefit etc.).

The Premium Allocation charges are much lesser compared to other ULIPs (5% for 2nd and 3rd yr,  2% for 4th and 5th  yr, 1% for 6th to 10th Yr, NIL from 11th yr).  The First Year’s premium will not be invested in the portfolio directly, at the time of maturity 100 to 450% of 1st year’s premium (depending on Premium and policy term)  will be given to you as guaranteed benefit.

It also has two types of Port folio Management policy :

1)Life Cycle based: Equity percentage of allocation automatically changed based on age.

2)Fixed Portfolio Strategy: Policy owner determines the fund types and allocation percentage (similar to other ULIP plans)

It provides choice of 7 Fund Types (Debt , Balanced, Equity, Thematic etc.), with Fund Management Charges (FMC) from 0.75% to 1.5%. This FMC is moderate compared to the FMC charged by other Insurance Companies.

ICICI prudential has very high reputation of Service, fund values at any time can be viewed online through login to at ICICI Prudential Website. Also the different Equity fund returns (1, 2, 3 years returns) are comparable to the best in the industry.

Recommendation: Considering all the above facts, we recommend this policy for those, who doesn’t have proper Term Insurance coverage and want a single policy to take care of the Insurance and the long term Investment need. We recommend that one should buy this policy with high Sum Assured value, with Policy term more than 20 years. Low Premium allocation charge in this policy makes it attractive compared to most other policies. Note that ULIP investments should be more than 10-15 years at least, for investment term lesser than that, Mutual Funds are preferable.