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Two awesome and hidden Health Insurance products

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Today, I will discuss about two  Health Insurance policies which are not very known or popular. However, these policies are unique and reasonably priced. These policies are sold by National Insurance Company Ltd and Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. The insurance policies, which I am talking about, are not single products but a combination of two or more products to create a single good product. You can consider these policies by investigating further and if they meet your requirements.  (Read Basics of Health Insurance)

Vidyarthi – Mediclaim for Students

Sold by National Insurance, Vidyarthi is designed to provide health and personal accident cover to the students. It also provides for continuation of insured students education in case of the death or permanent disablement of the guardian due to accident. The premium for hospitalisation expenses is substantially lower compared to a standard Mediclaim Policy.

Features

  • This policy is for students aged between 3 years to 25 years. Sum insured ranges between Rs 50,000 to Rs 4 lakh.
  • Any registered institution affiliated to any state board, council, university and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), University Grants Commission (UGC) or any other government statutory authority, in India, may take this policy.
  • Educational institutions may also take a group policy covering named students enrolled with them.
  • Parents/guardians of students may also take this policy.
  • The policy also provides for continuation of insured students education in case of death or permanent disablement of the guardian due to accident.
  • Sum insured under this policy shall be progressively increased by 5% in respect of each claim free year of insurance subject to maximum accumulation of 10 claim free years of insurance.
  • The policy also provides group discounts ranging from 10% to 30% depending on group size.

Cost Structure

Now, if we look at the premium table given below, for health insurance of Rs 1 lakh for a student, parents get personal accident coverage of Rs 2 lakh and the student also gets personal accident coverage of Rs 50,000. The premium for this plan is Rs 1,111 per year which is below the average price of medical insurance purchased from any other insurance company for sum insured of Rs 1 lakh for the age up to 25 years.

Scope Of Cover

  1. Room, Boarding expenses as provided by the Hospital/Nursing Home.
  2. Nursing expenses.
  3. Surgeon, Anaesthetist, Medical Practitioner, Consultants, Specialists Fees.
  4. Anaesthesia, Blood, Oxygen, Operation Theatre Charges, Surgical appliances(any disposable consumables subject to upper limit of 10% of Sum Insured), Medicines & Drugs, Diagnostic Materials and X-Ray, Dialysis, Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy, Cost of pacemaker, Artificial Limbs and cost of Stents and implants

* Service Tax Extra

The main reason why this product is not known to public is because people by themselves never take the initiative to find something better. Sometimes intermediaries, to whom people consult and buy insurance, are not aware of such products. In other countries, like US and UK, universities and colleges have made it mandatory for students to have health insurance which is not the case in India. If universities and parents take the initiative, then they can provide something better to their children as well as themselves through this product.

People can buy Vidyarthi from National Insurance directly or through the agents of that company. There are many other companies like Tata AIG, ICICI Lombard which offer similar kind of products but they are not as good as this one.  (Read details in Policy document)

Nagrik Suraksha Insurance

This is a master piece product from Oriental Insurance Company. Nagrik Suraksha is also a combination of personal accident coverage and medical insurance. This policy not only provides personal accident insurance, but also hospitalisation expenses on account of accident which other insurance companies fail to provide. In this policy, 80% of your coverage amount is for personal accident, and the remaining 20% is for hospitalisation on account of accident.

Example

Suppose you take insurance coverage amounting to Rs 1 lakh. Out of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 80, 000 is for personal accident and the remaining Rs 20,000 is for hospitalisation on account of accident. The premium to be paid for coverage amount of Rs 1 lakh is only Rs 90 for the entire year. If you buy insurance coverage amounting to Rs 4 lakh, you can get personal accident coverage worth Rs 3.2 lakh and hospitalisation expenses worth Rs 80,000 by just paying Rs 360 for the entire year.

Features

  • Minimum sum assured is Rs 1 lakh, while the maximum is Rs 5 lakh.
  • Policy period ranges from 1 year to 4 years.
  • Coverage is also provided outside India, but the claim settlement is done only in Indian currency.
  • A discount of 10% of the total premium will be allowed comprising the insured and any one or more of a) Spouse, b) Dependent children c) Dependent parents.
  • Group discounts available.
  • This insurance is available to person between the age of 5 years to 70 years for family package and 18 years to 70 years for individual(s)/group cover.

Premium Chart

* Service Tax Extra

You can buy Nagrik Suraksha from either agents of Oriental Insurance or from the company directly. This is really a gem of a product and most suitable for people who are looking at some exotic products and not just plain vanilla kind of offerings.  (Policy document)

This is a guest post by Kashyap Juthani from pocketsafe.in , I have added the charts and have done some minor additions and modifications .

3 thought provoking questions before you buy real estate

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

We have discussed Buying vs Renting in previous articles. This post is not about saying which method is superior. While buying a flat/house is everyone’s dream, there are some very important questions one needs to think about before buying real estate property. Most buyers aren’t putting in enough thought, about some critical points (which they need to). One reason could be that they are far too obsessed with increase in value, are overconfident about the returns they can generate in real estate in long run or probably because these critical points haven’t yet crossed their mind. But if you are thinking about buying real estate, you should be aware of these points…

House in India

Image source

1. What is the Construction Quality of the house & what will be its condition after decades ?

If a property comes from a great builder, does it mean it will be in existence or in great condition after 40-50 yrs? What will be the condition of the building or how much it will be in demand by others at that time?  Most of the buyers think about immediate requirement and may be 10-20 yrs hence. But should your vision be just 10-20 yrs when you are putting such a huge amount in Real estate?  Also real estate construction is going to continue for next 20-30-40 yrs for sure given the amount of demand in our country . So who all are going to invest/prefer in your house which is 30 yrs old in 2033 ? Will there be a situation when the prices instead of appreciation, actually starts depreciating because of bad condition ? To understand what I am saying just look at some building/flats which are constructed before 20-25 yrs in your city , look at that and ask yourself “At what price are you ready to buy it? , or do you at the hand want to buy it or not?”

How many of us have seen houses which are 50 yrs old today? Not many; houses which are 50+ yrs are a handful. I know when I say this, it’ll cast a pall on the quality of builders in these times. Already there are enough instances where quality construction is compromised and owners do not get the property in the same condition as they were promised! . (Learn some tricks of understanding construction quality here and here)

Another thing which happens is when a person gets a house in possession the house is all well-built, its shining and everything looks perfect. But is a healthy looking person also with high stamina? Can we judge a houses’ stamina and internal strength on how it looks, how jazzy its tiles are and what a wonderful balcony it has? No! . We really need a long time like 30-40 yrs to really have a good insight in how strong a house is. Anything will last first 10-20 yrs . Here is a video which shows how a real estate buyer got his Flat in bad condition from one of the most reputed Builder and not at all in what they were promised . Looking at the video , I don’t think the house will last for more than 30 yrs .

2. Where are you going to be there after 20-30 yrs ? what are your future plans ?

Most of the people keep changing our jobs in starting of their career . An average situation would be that a person changes his job in atleast 3-4 yrs (in the software industry at least). But at the time of buying a property, a lot of people do not think much about this. They make believe that this, is the final job or at least a “long-term job”. Then, once they buy the house, they are almost stuck (Link) .

A lot of times, they don’t take risks in career and don’t want to take up another exciting job or a better opportunity in other city or much far place in same city, because of the “Comfort Zone” they have created for themselves.You have to be really clear about this point. A lot of people travel back from abroad to start their new life/business in India and the first thing most of them do is buy a house. I would recommend better get settled properly first, start your new work, make sure the stability is there and then go for commitment of a house. (Read this comment)

Not just from career viewpoint, you also have to think about retirement and the post 50+ age point of view . If you are age 30 today, are you going to work for 30 yrs in Bangalore/Delhi/Mumbai etc and then live in same city to enjoy your retirement? Do you think your retirement life would be wonderful in City of Mumbai or Bangalore? If yes , then go ahead.

But personally I think I will be working in a bigger city and then post retirement. I would like to settle in a smaller city or may be my home town. So if you also think that come coastal region or some smaller town or home town village is your post retirement destination, then not buying a house can be your choice.

3. Compromise on Living style and Mental Fear ?

You also have to be clear on what kind of life style you want to live in your life, because after you take Home loan , then comes all kind of issues like

  • Fear of losing the job and not able to pay off the loan
  • Not able to live your life comfortably and not doing all the things in life which needs more money as you are committed to your Home loan
  • Not able to take high risk and satisfying job in life because of the commitment , One reader who owns a company told me that a lot of talented people do not join his company even though they have better work and opportunity to do what they truely love , just because of the uncertainty a startup brings with itself .

The finding of an exclusive CNN-IBN poll on the economy reveals that one out of two Indians is scared of losing the job. The poll, conducted across seven metros, also shows that Mumbaikars are one of the most worried about their job prospects. Link

A lot of people take more risk than they can handle and it leads to traumatized life , which effect health, Strainful life at Home, unejoyable life for many . Though on extreme end, but some cases might also end in Death .

Pune: A 31-year-old man allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan at his residence in Indrayaninagar in Bhosari.  The incident came to light only on Wednesday morning.The Bhosari police have identified the deceased as Piyush,alias Kishore Muralidhar Mahajan,of Indrayaninagar,Bhosari.  The Bhosari police said that Mahajan had been disturbed ever since he had lost his job.

He was finding it difficult to pay the monthly instalments for the flat he had recently bought.The police have recovered a suicide note which said he was committing suicide because no one was coming forward to help through his bad times, the police said.

Source : TNN

How to Save if you are living on Rent ?

Incase you are not planning to buy the house, you can always invest the money in a way that you can buy it later after some year or at the time of retirement. Long term returns from real-estate have been in range of 10-12%, but even if we take it to be 12-15% , We can invest our money in some equity which can deliver similar returns . You can put money in ETF’s or Index Funds and let your money grow overtime and buy real estate at some later point .

Conclusion

As I said previously, it’s not a buying vs renting debate. It’s all about thinking well in advance about your decision and knowing all the aspects of buying a house. If you are clear about all the points mentioned , then you can go ahead and buy anything.

List of Best Equity Diversified Mutual funds for 2010

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Want to invest in the best mutual funds in India? Read on. I have compiled a short list of Mutual Funds which are top mutual funds in the Equity Diversified category. These are long-term winners in their categories and have proved their performance over the years by beating their benchmark and category average by a good margin. These are non-tax saving Equity diversified mutual funds that are large-cap oriented. Remember that I am giving a list of funds. These are funds that have more than half allocation in large-cap oriented companies and around 50% of their money in the top 3 sectors they hold. Based on these criteria, I am putting 7 best mutual funds along with analysis, some of these are very old and some are relatively newer. (last year list)

List of Best Equity Mutual Funds

Source: valueresearchonline.com

Portfolio & Sector Allocation

All the above funds have returned around 20% or more in different time frames consistently, which is very encouraging when you want to invest in these funds. However our concentration this time is large-cap oriented mutual funds, we are not including funds that have a high concentration in midcap or small-cap funds. Let’s look at these mutual funds share in Large or Giant Companies. My criteria were to have at least 60%+ in Large/Giant Companies and around 50% allocation in the top sectors they invested in. We also have funds expense ratio which is around 2% for each of them. Read Magic of SIP

Source: valueresearchonline.com

Fund Manager and a Brief Overview of Mutual Funds

Past performance is just one of the criteria we can look at, but it’s not enough and not a guarantee of how it will perform in the future. Let’s also look at who manages it and how these funds have done so far overall as per their mandate and investing philosophy. Please note, that we are talking about the Growth option here and not the dividend option.

HDFC Top 200

HDFC Top 200 is one of the most well-known Mutual Funds in the country. It’s an amazing performance of 26% CAGR in the last 14 yrs is proof. 10 lacs invested in HDFC Top 200 since Inception is worth 2.54 crores (non-taxable) today compared to 30 lacs in FD (taxable). Some achievements of funds are that in the 2008 bear market, HDFC Top 200 was able to restrict its fall to 45% only, which was 11% less than its benchmark and 8% less than its category. Prashant Jain is the Fund Manager of HDFC Top 200 and one of the best known and famous Fund managers in the country with a long term experience.

Prashant Jain’s Investment Approach: “The criteria that go into selecting stocks/sectors are quality, our understanding, growth prospects, valuation of businesses and the composition of the benchmark – BSE 200.”. The fund has good 20% allocation in Midcap or small-cap stocks which gives a kicker in returns.

How to look beyond short term returns in Mutual Funds

DSP BlackRock Top 100 Equity

DSPBR top 100 is not a decade old fund, but its performance is strong enough to say that it’s one of the best in the category as of now. The fund has given enough proof of its performance like even in the first year of its launch it gave an amazing 129% return beating its benchmark by an “oh my god” 29% return:). It also showed its capacity to restrict loses in the bear market of 2008  by falling by only 46% compared to its benchmark which fell by 55 %, thereby giving a better performance by 9 %. The best thing I liked about this fund is that this fund has provided very strong performance by mainly focusing on large-cap companies, the fund allocation in Large-cap companies stands at 94% which is outstanding. This clearly shows the competence of Fund manager Apoorva Shah who is managing the fund for the last 3 yrs.

Birla Sun Life Frontline Equity A

This is another winner in the long run. Over the years Birla Sun life frontline equity has consistently outperformed its benchmark by a good margin. During the market falls of 2004, 2006 and the big crash of 2008 and early 2009, This fund was able to restrict downsides better than its benchmark. The fund is largely Large Cap oriented, however the fund is known to take some risks in Midcap space and hence has seen one-quarter and its first year lagging behind its benchmark, but that was not a prolonged behavior, over all it has done great. The main reason it came to top in performance was the entry of Mahesh Patil as the fund manager in Nov 2005.

HDFC Equity

This fund is for long-term investors because HDFC Equity does not hesitate to take risks. Having a good allocation in midcap/small-cap companies, Its performance comes by being invested for long-term, which means short-term volatility in its performance. Being 15+ yrs old fund, have shown its performance over and over again, this one is for people who really like to play with mutual funds on a long-term basis. The fund manager is again star performer Prashant Jain, who took over this fund in 2003 and the fund has never looked back. Just to give you a flavor, the fund in 2009 has given 30% more than Nifty Index and in the last 1 yrs itself, it has given 42% return compared to just 15% from Nifty. You can count this one as an aggressive large-cap fund for investors with a strong heart and long-term vision

UTI Opportunities

As the name suggest, UTI opportunities are for you, only if you a risk taker and like to bet on different opportunities available in the market. As per the mandate of UTI opportunities it looks at the gaps available in the market and the sector and pics the stocks which are really undervalued and might outperform in the future. As per the fund mandate, the Fund manager dynamically shifts between sectors depending on the macro economic outlook and opportunities available in the market. This means the potential of a huge upside as well as the risk of getting wrong. After Harsh Upadhyaya took over in 2007, the fund has done wonders and has given returns double than its benchmark, which is impressive. So if you a kind of investor who likes to take chance on opportunities, UTI Opportunities should be in your Portfolio.

Reliance RSF Equity

Reliance RSF has shown some impressive performance over the last some years. However the fund is fairly aggressive in nature and is known to take risky calls whenever it finds good opportunity, despite being called a large-cap fund, Reliance RSF has large amount (45%)  of portfolio in small and mid-cap stocks at the time of writing this article, The fund did not really do very well when it started, but within a year it came on track and then showed good performance. Remember that this is a risky fund and can be actually compared to mid-cap funds in some sense given its nature of taking risks. So it might not suit you if you like to take long-term calls and want to be on the safe side. The fund is also known to churn its portfolio faster, so be cautious.

UTI Dividend Yield

This fund is really special. UTI Dividend Yield is another gem in the basket of Diversified mutual funds with a different style of investing. This is one fund, which has a woman for a fund manager in Swati Kulkarni, who has done a wonderful job in managing the fund till now. As per the mandate, the UTI dividend yield fund should make an investment of at least 65 percent of the portfolio in equity shares that have a high dividend yield at the time of investment. The fund has managed to successfully deliver on its commitment and has never deviated from its words. That’s called ethics and focus. Due to this, the fund has given a strong performance and because of its nature of strategy, the downfall is always restricted well. Ladies would like to invest in this fund given they like to play safe and it also comes from a lady fund manager 🙂 (Women & Personal Finance in India)

Which one should you invest in?

Remember that you have to take a call based on what your time frame is and which fund suits your requirement, Overall, if you are too confused in choosing the fund, I would say the best thing would be to choose any, randomly and invest rather than delaying your decision because of confusion. Another thing which you should understand that this is not an exhaustive list. There are enough funds other than these which could have been here in the list, but I have not included them as these 7 funds were the one which came on the top as per my criteria and also because I wanted to limit the number of funds to a single digit so that one can choose with less confusion. Also, make sure your asset allocation is correct

Disclaimer:  Note that these funds are pure equity funds and just because they have performed excellently in history does not make them future star performers. This is just an assumption, that they will keep doing great even in the future given their investment style and integrity in management till date. Also, you have to make sure you review your investments every year so that you throw out the laggards and pick better funds. Expect around 12-13% in the future even though they have high potential. This article should in no way be treated as an encouragement to invest in these funds. Your decision is purely yours 🙂

Comments: Which other funds did you expect in this list? Do you have other funds’ names which deserved to be here according to you? Do these funds suit your requirements?

New Direct Tax Code disappoints Investors

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Update Aug 30 ,2010 , 5:00 PM   : This post should be now considered as post with old information as after DTC was tabled in Parliament , there were many changes in DTC.

Also DTC Bill has been delayed by 1 yrs and will come into effect from Apr 2012 , Link

Cabinet has finally approved the Direct Tax Code and now it would go to Parliament for approval and as per tax expert, Subhash Lakhotia is would be easily passed by the Parliament. Finally, the Tax system of our country is going to simplify after The new tax code comes into effect from Apr 2011 next year. The bad part is that the tax slabs have been revised and now it’s much lesser than what was proposed earlier (Link)

Change in Tax Slab

New Tax Slab : 10% for 2-5 lacs , 20% for 5-10 lacs and 30% for above 10 lacs

Proposed Tax Slab earlier :  10% on 1.6-10 lacs , 20% for 10-25 lacs and 30% for above 25 lacs.

Some More Features

  • Deductions from taxable income will be available for interest on housing loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh per annum
  • For women and senior citizens, the exemption limit would be Rs 2.5 lakh per annum
  • Up to 1 lacs could be saved for payments into PF and similar superannuation schemes
  • Deduction of up to Rs 50,000 for life insurance and health insurance premiums or tuition fees.
  • Securities Transaction Tax (STT) and Education cess are out .
  • Life Insurance payments and  mutual fund income are liable for 10% TDS  (source)
  • HRA is no longer available.

You should note that all these changes are going to happen from Apr 2011 (next year). For this current year, everything is same (you will get same old 80C deductions)

Why Public might get disappointed

The biggest blow is the change in the tax slab, especially investors who earn in range of 5-10 lacs per year, earlier Financial minister promised that the tax would be 10% up to 10 lacs , but now there is 20% tax for 5-10 lacs range, which means that effectively the tax paid would be 2 times of what it would have been earlier. Also even for high earning people who make in the range of 10-25 lacs, earlier it would have been 20 %, but now it would be 30 %, which is good enough disappointment:).

Here is a nice video that would give you a good insight into what to expect from the Direct Tax Code.


Comment on how you feel about the tax slab ? Are you happy about it or disappointed? I think it would be a big disappointment for a lot of people, at least personally I am disappointed by that 🙂 .

Dont Declare wrong information while taking Insurance policy

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

An Agent comes to your home or office and tells you about an Insurance plan. It can be a traditional insurance plan or term insurance. Being an agent, he wants to make sure, you do less work. Anyway most  people feel bored or find it tedious to fill out a long form by themselves. After all, the agent is there to do it. It’s an amusing situation, that in today’s generation, we run around all day to different places to buy our TV, Fridge, Washing Machines. We inquire from a million places, read the reviews etc., and make sure you we find out each and every little detail when we buy such products for our home or our convenience, but sadly we don’t care enough to read financial documents or fill them ourselves; documents which will help take care of our little children or family when we are not around; documents that don’t even take few minutes or an hour to look at.

Coming back to the story, this Insurance agent treats the customer as King and customer also feels great about it. The maximum he will do is sign the document (after having a super quick look at the pages, making agent feel that he actually cares about it !)  The customer is a smoker, but agent doesn’t even bother to ask. Even if customer tells him about it, the agent does not put “Smoker” in the form as it might reduce the chances of getting the policy and hence no commission 🙂

Why Mistakes Happen in Life Insurance details ?

Now tax saving is coming for the year (not the protection of family, mind you !), and the customer is ready to raise his hands for questions like “Who all have Insurance?” or “Who is adequately covered through life insurance” ? The agent get his commission and mostly disappears, and customer is happily living his life under a happy impression that he has life insurance; until one day, he dies…

The family is devastated, but time goes on and once things settle down, they go to the insurance company and ask them for the Insurance Money… and Pow! The family gets sucker-punched! . The insurance company happily tells them that the customer was a smoker, but has given false information in the documents at the time of taking the policy hence by law, they are will not honour the claim! They are correct . Read a case between LIC and one customer on claim rejection.

This happens with a lot of insurance customers. They tend to give wrong information in the documents; as giving correct information increases the premium. (This happens a lot with smokers.) What’s so wrong if company asks for a higher premium for smokers? If you are a smoker, definitely from a business standpoint (and even logically) you have higher chances of dying than a non smoker. So, it’s natural to charge you a higher premium. But, if you give wrong information in the documents or try to misrepresent anything, it means company is covering a higher risk person for a a normal premium and they are very correct to reject the claim. Read this article to understand more on giving wrong or incomplete information in insurance documents.

Comment from Insurance Company Official

Sourav Shah, a senior Manager at Aegon Religare, shares some of his thoughts for claim rejection in comments section.

Hi Manish, To give you a detailed explanation of why the plan ‘iTerm’ is cheap.

The simple reason is ‘There are no middlemen – Agent – involved in selling this product.’ Since this product is sold online there are no agents commission involved and hence the company is not paying anything to the Insurance agent and thus passing on the benefit of the low cost to the consumer. We all know that most insurance products have a commission of 30-40% in the first year premium that is paid to the agent. The reason this product is cheaper because there are no agents commission involved. Secondly, Aegon Religare is the only company that has sought IRDA approvals to sell the product online since we are very keen on providing the customers what a product that they need – a simple term plan – at a price that is affordable.

Regarding the claims ratio, Manish, the 3 customers whose claims were rejected were due to wrong declaration at the time of taking the policy. They had declared themselves as non smokers. I would request all customers who are buying a term plan or any insurance product from any Life insurer, to not hide any facts while taking a policy. The insurers build up the cost based on your declaration, so its always advisable to declare truely in order to ensure that all claims are met. And if any customer faces any issue with any isurer he can contact the insurance ombudsman and he will immediatley look into their issues. Happy buying. Manish this is a beautiful and unbiased platform that you have provided for customers to clarify their doubts. Please keep up the gr8 work.

Regards,
Sourav Shah
([email protected])

(Link)

How to correct the false Information ?

In case, you have provided any wrong information in your policy document, it’s almost certain that your claim will be rejected. Don’t try to fool insurance companies. They are smarter than you at figuring it out. So contact your Insurance company and give them factual information . This may lead to increase in premium or rejection of policy, but it’s a better situation than getting rejected at the time when you are in the sky.

Buying Health Insurance Policies Online

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Finding a suitable health insurance policy is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. There are 21 health insurance companies in India and many offer more than one type of health insurance product. Joining the bandwagon are life insurance companies that are now offering health insurance policies as well! So how do you buy one? First, make sure you know what you need – whether it is individual health insurance or a family floater you are seeking; how much cover you need and when you need it.

How do I go about buying a health insurance policy?

Traditionally, health insurance policies have been bought either because they were sold or because of awareness among investors through advertisements. And a majority of us rely on the group health insurance cover provided by our employers anyway.

The simplest way to go about buying a policy is to get in touch with the insurers and ask for premium rates. But this has its own limitation – you could easily take a month to get all the details and the insurance agent could really be slow in his response – after all, it’s a health insurance policy he is selling and it fetches him less commission!

Go online: Another easy way is to use insurance comparison sites or aggregators as they are called. Aggregators provide a single window to compare quotes and features from multiple insurance companies and help a customer select the most suitable one. There is a whole lot that has mushroomed in India of late.
The best health insurance aggregator website in our opinion is Coverfox.com who gives you the results in a decent interface.

How do aggregator sites work?

Once online, all you need to do is provide your age, how much coverage you need and for how long – typically this is one year with most insurers today. The portal will collect personal information – email id, city and phone number to reach out to you later on – do provide this if you are a serious buyer.

Once you enter all relevant details, you are shown a plethora of policies and you can check each one out before selecting the one you want to buy. Most of the aggregator sites will collect payment from you upfront and liaise with the insurance company who will close the deal with you. Aggregators get a small marketing fee from the insurance companies for policies that they sell online. In response to this article, Deepak Yohannan, CEO, and co-founder of iGear Financial Services says “The process of buying online insurance has been made as simple as buying a flight or a movie ticket online. In the last year, there have been considerable improvements in the online buying process.”

Example

Suppose you are 30 years old and need health insurance for Rs 3, 00,000/- for a year. The following is a sample of the health insurance covers that are on offer. Let’s just talk about individual health insurance plans for now.
Health Insurance options in India
Imagine the time you would have spent on collecting this data and comparing it if you were to do this offline.

Filtering the unwanted

How do you select what you want to buy? Remember that the aggregator site provides you comprehensive information on each policy and even lets you compare them – some sites will allow you to compare two policies at a time while others will allow you to compare more. The comparison feature compares side by side almost everything an insured would want from a health policy – this way an aggregator site is very powerful to help you decide which policy scores better. After you have compared and selected your policies, all you need to do is apply the same filtering techniques one would use when buying a policy offline to select the best one that you will finally buy. There are a host of parameters that one could apply.

In the example above, with so many policies available with such a wide range of premiums, a best practice could be to pick a policy with the highest, lowest and midway premiums for comparison and then apply the filtering parameters. We apply two of the most important comparison parameters first. Firstly, start with the maximum renewal age as the first option – select the insurer which allows you to renew the policy till maximum age. If you want to change to a new insurer at an advancing age, this will be looked at as a new policy and will come with a higher premium. It’s best to stick to a policy that can be renewed till the maximum age. Secondly, check when all the insurers will allow pre-existing illnesses to be covered. The earlier they start covering all pre-existing illnesses, the better. Usually, there is a waiting period of a couple of years before which expense incurred on pre-existing illnesses starts getting covered.

The waiting period varies from company to company. Filter more by checking on what are the special features that are on offer and go through the exclusions with a comb. Exclusions are most important as far as a health policy is concerned – you don’t want to get a claim rejected because you did not know what was not included in the policy. Does the policy cover maternity expenses or ambulance expenses? Generally, there will be sub-limits for many of the expenses within the overall limit, for eg, room rent could be 1.5% of sum insured per day. So if you are staying in expensive cities like Mumbai or Delhi, for a cover of Rs 3,00,000/- the room rent charges come to Rs 4500/- per day. Think whether the hospital you want to go to will have a room that can be accommodated in this range. If not, you would be better of settling with a no sub-limit policy.

Its worth noting that most of the policies will cover expenses incurred a month before and 60 or 90 days after hospitalization; free annual health check claims and a 24 hour helpdesk among a host of other common services which generally should not be used as key comparison parameters.

Here is how the data looks like in our example for the highest, lowest and mid-way premium figures.

Health Insurance comparision at different premiums

Which one would you buy from the above? It’s clear that the first policy is better as pre-existing illness are covered from the third year onwards and there are no sub-limits on room rent and doctor fees – so if this meets your criteria, go for it irrespective of what the premium is.

Checkout

After having selected a policy that suits you best, all the aggregator sites are pretty friendly in terms of helping you check out to buy the policy online after you have registered with them. The insurance company will contact you for paperwork within a week of payment.

Issues buying online

  • Firstly, there are many aggregator sites available in India. Not each one will cover all the 21 insurers and you could lose out on some of them. The best way around this is to use maybe 2 or 3 of them and compare and buy from one that best suits your requirement.
  • Some aggregator sites might not have the correct data! It’s best to re-check the details of the policy you have finalized with the insurer, either on the insurer’s website or offline at a local office, before buying.
  • You still need to undergo medical tests if you are 45 years of age.

Advantages of buying online?

“For starters, buying online has now become a very simple process. You do not have to go through the hassle of going through an agent, who would have a tie-up with limited number of insurance companies and may not be able to get the product that you want. The agent may try pushing a product which they want you to buy. Also, there is complete transparency in the process when you buy online – everything is there in front of you and then you can make a decision. With an agent you really do not know if some facts are being hidden and only the good part of the policy is being highlighted to you. You realize the worst when the policy document comes to you or when you start the claim process. Having said that, if the agent is a completely trustworthy person, buying online and offline are the same,” says Deepak.

So, here are the advantages:

  • You save time – everything can be done at the click of a mouse.
  • It’s cheap, you save the costs for the insurer. This is passed onto you.
  • You don’t have to make a trip to the insurer’s offices and wait for time from the agents.
  • Most of the aggregator sites are easy to use and compare – it’s a one-stop-shop to buy policies.
  • Most of these sites are safe to operate and buy a policy using card details.
  • Most aggregators have an FAQ section and “ask an expert” section which helps you reach out on queries you might have.

Quick Bites

Keep the following points in mind when buying health insurance:

  • Ask insurers for premium rates or dig the figures out for yourself on aggregator sites.
  • Do not base your decision on the premium alone – remember, the policy with the cheapest premium might not be the best one for you. Also, there is no one policy that can be termed as best for everyone. Select one that meets your criteria, lifestyle and family requirements and buy it irrespective of what the premium is.
  • If you live in a metro, take a cover of 4-5 lakhs; in a smaller city, 2-3 lakhs of cover will do.
  • Check whether your policy will guarantee long term insurability.
  • Check whether a floater plan is more beneficial for you.
  • Most importantly, check the policy wordings on what the exclusions mean to you.
  • Opt for a cashless plan.
  • Take health insurance even if you have one from your employer.
  • Reveal all your family illness history; if you hide anything, it will only come back to hurt you.
  • Buy from a health insurance and not from a life insurance company.
  • Buy a critical illness policy separately than as a rider to your basic health insurance.

Disclaimer: The views and analysis expressed are those of the author and should not be construed in any way to be the sole reason of buying a policy online. Please do adequate research yourself before buying.

This is a guest post from TheWealthWisher, a personal finance blogger who writes on www.thewealthwisher.com

Review of ICICI iProtect Term plan

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

ICICI Prudential has recently launched its online Term Insurance Plan called iProtect . iProtect is extremely affordable online Term Plan whic has some very good features. Last year Aegon Religare launched its online Term Plan iTerm , but it had some limitations like no riders attached and the company didnt had much trust factor . However iProtect comes with some really great features like Accidental rider, Term upto 30 yrs , wide coverage of cities and apart from being completely online, it can also be bought by agents, corporate agents and brokers , So it you are not net savvy or dont like pure online product, you can still buy iProtect Term Insurance through offline means , however the premiums in that case can be higher compared to when you buy online,because of agents commission involved in between.

The best thing I liked about iProtect was the user interface . It was easy to operate , asks less things in the starts and you come to know about your premium just by providing basic information like Age , Term , Sum Insured etc in the start, unlike iTerm from Aegon Religare where you had to provide all the medical details and finally after some hard work it shows you your premium. Personally for me (age 27 , policy for 30 yrs) , the iProtect premium for 1 crore was just Rs 9,400 .The ICICI iProtect comes with two different Plans, one with accidental rider and one without accidental rider

Why Term Insurance is not a waste of Money

iProtect Premium Calculation Interface

Two Different Plans under iProtect

  • iProtect Option I : In this option there is pure life cover without any rider, you get the sum assured only when you die, else not .
  • iProtect Option II PLUS : In this option , along with pure life cover , you also have accidental rider , which is equal to the Sum Assured (subject to a maximum of Rs. 50 lacs) will be paid out in the unfortunate event of death of the Life Assured only if due to an accident

Other Features of iProtect Life Insurance Plan

iProtect Term Plan features

More at Document Brochure

When does the Life Cover Starts in iProtect?

The best part of the policy is that your life cover begins immediately once company receives the premium in case of non-medical cases (incase there is no need of medical examination) , However,  In cases where medical examination is  required, cover will commence from the date of issuance of the policy. Calculate your Insurance cover

Freelook up Period

A period of 15 days is available to the policyholder to review the policy. If the policyholder does not find the policy suitable, the policy document must be returned to the Company for cancellation within 15 days from the date of receipt of the same. On cancellation of the policy during the freelook period, They will return the premium paid  subject to the deduction of:

a) Insurance stamp duty paid under the policy,

b) Expenses borne by the Company on medical examination,if any

iProtect Premiums Illustrations

A) The table below provides annual online premium (exclusive of service tax and cesses, as applicable) for various combinations of Age and Sum Assured for a healthy male (non-tobacco user), opting for a policy term of 25 years.

iProtect Term Insurance premium exmaple from ICICI Prudential

B) The table below provides annual premiums (exclusive of service tax and cesses, as applicable) for various combinations of Age and Sum Assured for a healthy male (non-tobacco user), opting for a policy term of 20 years, where policy is sourced by tied agents, corporate  agents, brokers or direct sales.

iProtect Term Insurance premium exmaple from ICICI Prudential

iProtect vs iTerm Comparision

I Let us look how iProtect fares in comparision to iTerm plan. I found out that iProtect beats iTerm in all the areas.

ICICI iProtect vs Aegon Religare iTerm Comparision

What is covered under Accidental Death ?

Accidental Death Benefit: This benefit is payable subject to the conditions mentioned below:

1. The death due to accident should not be caused by the following:

a) Attempted suicide or self-inflicted injuries while sane or insane

b) Engaging in aerial flights (including parachuting and skydiving)

c) By the Life Assured committing any breach of law

d) Due to war, whether declared or not or civil commotion;

e) By engaging in hazardous sports or pastimes

2. Death due to accident must be caused by violent, external and visible means.

3. The accident shall result in bodily injury or injuries to the Life Assured independently of any other means. Such injury or injuries shall, within 180 days of the occurrence of the accident, directly and independently of any other means cause the death of the Life Assured. In the event of the death of the Life Assured after 180 days of the occurrence of the accident, the Company shall not be liable to pay this Benefit.

Premium Comparision with other Cheap Insurance Policies

Who Should Buy ?

If you dont have Term Insurance : If you havent bought term insurance till now and were still waiting or I must say “delaying” because of your laziness , this is the time to act and finally buy term insurance online .

If you are UnderInsured : You know that you are underinsured , who still not taking the additional cover, now its your time to go and buy additional cover .

If you already have sufficient Cover : Situation changes , and so does in Personal Finance, even if you are adequately insured , It would be a good idea of explore an option of shifting fully or a part of your cover into iProtect term plan , as its a cheap plan .

Open Question, This is a new plan , we are not sure of the customer care support and how well its service is, What do you think about it ?

Comments , Do you like this iProtect Plan ? Please let me know your reasons and what you think about this plan . Are you going to take this policy ?

Making sense of the market through Sensex at MRP

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

In the previous article, we looked at Stocks@MRP and how a stock can have a price tag. Moving further, we now discuss how the concept of Stocks@MRP has been extended even to the benchmark index :

Sensex . Also there is an example of one stock each considerably above and below its MRP. The inherent volatility in the stock markets makes stock investing to be perceived, by many, as a gamble. However, the Stocks@MRP can help us get a very good idea about the worth of a stock.

Once we know the MRP of a stock, we should buy it at a 50% discount to its MRP and sell it if goes considerably above its MRP. Then, how does Sensex@MRP come into the picture? And why do we need to find out the worth of the benchmark index as well?

Sensex markets india

Going back to History

Let’s jump back a bit in time. It’s December 2007. The Sensex is close to 20,000. The media is going gaga over the Indian economy and the movement of Sensex (up by 55% in just 9 months) and is saying that the next stop is 30,000. Everybody is eager to jump onto the bandwagon.

Fortunately, you have been a part of the rally since the beginning and have seen a considerable rise in your holdings. So, what do you do? Do you sell off and book your profits? Or do you wait? After all everyone is saying that this is just the beginning.

You wouldn’t want to look like a fool selling too early and missing out on the further upside, would you? You stay in and within a few months, you regret your decision.

The market crashes (falls by 50% in 1 year), your stocks tumble and a large portion of your wealth is wiped away. All your companies are still doing well, they are still fundamentally strong. Yet, you have suffered because of the market’s over reaction to the sub-prime crisis.

You may have not lost your capital, if you bought your stocks at a discount to the MRP, but your profits have definitely vanished!

Sensex@MRP concept

Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors in the world has said, “Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful”. But to do this, you need to be aware when the others are being greedy and when the others are fearful. And this is the quest that exactly led us to finding Sensex@MRP.

The market represented by Sensex is known over react, to both positive and negative news. Be it national or international politics, capital inflows or outflows and favorable or unfavorable monsoon forecasts; the Sensex fluctuates widely because of these.

Even though Sensex is comprised of just 30 stocks, chances are that if these big names get hit, a majority of the other stocks also get clobbered. This thought led us to the logical extension of finding Sensex@MRP so as to enable investors to enter stocks at bargain levels and help them exit when things start getting over-exuberant!

The Sensex companies are some of the biggest and most well known names in the country. They are amongst the favourites amongst the institutional investors and hence are highly liquid. One can then expect these stocks and as a result the Sensex to trade close to the fair value i.e. MRP.

However this has seldom been the case. On quite a few occasions, the market has become irrationally exuberant or highly depressed. Knowing these phases of the market can help you become better investors. The graph below gives you a comparison of Sensex@MRP values plotted against actual Sensex values for a period of 10 years beginning March 1999.

Click on the graph below to have a look.

Sensex at MRP

Movement in Sensex along with its MRP

  • March 1999 to December 2000 saw Sensex quoting consistently above its MRP. Many of us will remember this time as the Technology boom. During this time Sensex was trading at a multiple of 30 times earnings. As the Sensex was clearly above Sensex@MRP, this was a good time to ‘Sell’. As expected a correction took place and within a year, Sensex was trading 15% below Sensex@MRP.
  • June 2000 to March 2003, saw the Sensex trading at around 30% discount to its MRP. The earnings for the Sensex companies were stagnant during this period but clearly the market was undervaluing them. In hindsight, this was a good period to enter the market.
  • Post 2003, earnings of the companies entered a high growth phase and this continued till March 2008. This is evident from Sensex@MRP which increased from 6000 levels in 2003 to 19000 levels in March 2008. But the market seems to have over reacted during this phase with the Sensex crossing the Sensex@MRP in September 2007 and December 2007. Infact December 2007 saw an over valuation of as much as 15% – a clear sign to Sell and get out.
  • As the sub-prime crisis and the fears of a global meltdown spread, Sensex crashed and reached 9000 levels in December 2008 and March 2009. What is interesting to note here is the fact that earnings of the Sensex companies had not suffered much. Sensex@MRP, which is driven primarily by earnings, was in the 17000 levels. Thus the market was without a doubt over-reacting and Sensex was quoting at almost 50% discount to Sensex@MRP. This was the buying opportunity of a lifetime.
  • Within a couple of quarters, Sensex zoomed up and traded close to its MRP. Considering March 2010 quarter results, Sensex@MRP comes out to 18,996. This means currently Sensex is just about 4% below its MRP. Thus, Sensex is close to its fair value and as investors we need to tread with caution. Quite a few stocks are creating 52 weeks highs and it is difficult to find value picks at the current moment. Infact, some stocks are currently trading well above their MRP and one can consider selling them.

Reliance Infrastructure Example

An example of a company quoting considerably above its MRP is Reliance Infrastructure. In 1999, Reliance Infra was quoting at a discount of 20%. It crossed the MRP in year 2000 and remained close to MRP till 2003 inspite of an inconsistent financial performance. Its earnings infact witnessed a drop in 2002 and 2003.

The company’s performance improved post 2003 and the price zoomed above its MRP. In 2004, the stock was quoting as much as 150% above its MRP. This seemed like a sell signal but the stock rose further to unimaginable levels in 2007. In two quarters i.e. from June 2007 to December 2007, the stock more than tripled.

The irrational exuberance of the market was visible as the stock quoted at a PE multiple of 50 at Rs. 2130. The price crashed soon and in March 2009, the stock was quoting at a 35% discount to its MRP. Again, the prices corrected and the stock is currently trading 50% above its MRP of Rs.746.

Reliance Infrastructure

However, even with the market at 18,000, there are a few stocks which offer good value. Let’s take a look at a Sensex company which is currently quoting at a discount to its MRP.

Bharti Airtel Example

Bharti Airtel currently at Rs. 327 is quoting at a discount of 44% to its MRP of Rs. 589. Click on the graph below to take a look at Bharti’s historical valuations. Except for the initial years, Bharti has always traded above its MRP.

Leadership in the telecom industry coupled with high growth in the mobile market, helped the company record great earnings growth over the years. However, since March 2006 as competition intensified, the premium commanded by Bharti has decreased especially after Reliance Communication’s entry.

Further, the telecom sector has been seeing all sorts of problems including an intense price war, detrimental policies and very recently audacious 3G and broadband license bids. To add to this, Bharti also completed the acquisition of Zain Telecom which led to questions being raised about its financial position.

All this led to Bharti tumble to levels seen in March 2009. However, over the last few weeks, Bharti has picked up quite a bit. Bharti’s MRP works out to Rs. 589 considering an earnings growth rate of 18% which is substantially lower than its past growth rates thus making it a value pick.

Bharti Airtel
Finally, how effective is this concept of MRP especially as it is based on past data? After all as they say past performance is not a guarantee for the future, is it? But as we saw in the graphs, over a long term, stocks tend to move towards their MRP.

So, the rule of buying at a discount to MRP (ideally 50%) and selling above MRP would ensure good returns. Once the stock crosses the MRP, the probability of a correction increases. There is however always the chance of error. There is a possibility of the stock running considerably above the MRP as seen in the case of Reliance Infra.

You may miss out on the upside fuelled mostly by sentiments rather than earnings. But provided you buy the stock at a 50% discount, you would already be sitting on handsome, riskfree returns and hence would rather let this risky upside pass!

Now, Stocks too have a MRP Tag

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Have you ever asked what is the MRP of a stock ? I don’t think so !

The reason many investors shy away from investing in stock markets is because it seems to be a gamble. With the markets fluctuating every day, dropping or rising at the slightest bit of concern or euphoria, one is bound to be wary of putting one’s hard-earned money here.

And most of us experienced the worst of this volatility during the market crash in 2008; some of us are still recovering from its aftermath. So, how can we ensure that there won’t be a repeat of this scenario? How do we ensure that we do not lose our shirt at the market and make our hard earned money grow into wealth?

We all know that it is important to invest in fundamentally strong companies.

But what is equally important, if not more, is to invest at the right price. But how do we find out the right price for stocks?

Whenever we shop for anything, we are guided by a MRP tag on the wrapper or pack. Unfortunately, we do not have such a MRP tag to guide us when we buy stocks, do we? Well, now you can even have a MRP tag for stocks!

Stocks@MRP can be a great tool for investors to make sensible buy and sell decisions based on fundamentals and not on market sentiments. MoneyWorks4me, have labelled stocks with a MRP tag; something which each one of us can understand and relate to.

What is Stock@MRP based on ?

This price tag for stocks is based on the factor which primarily drives the price of a stock in the long-term – the earnings power of a company. The concept of MRP is based on the fact that, while in the short term, stocks might be affected due to news, sentiments, FII movements etc. over the Long term, the market will invariably reflect a stock’s intrinsic value based on its earnings.

MRP is a tool which helps you to gauge whether the market is under reacting or over reacting to these. As sensible investors, we would be well served if we bought stocks at a considerable discount (ideally 50%) to their MRP and sold off stocks if they are priced considerably above their MRP.

To verify whether this method could have worked well during different time periods, good times as well as bad times, we back tested it for the period 1999-2010 and found that the results are quite gratifying.

Let’s understand this concept with the example of Wipro.

The graph below shows two lines. The Red line is Wipro’s actual stock price for the period 1999 to 2010, whereas the green line is Wipro’s MRP for the same period as calculated by us based on its fundamentals.

The graph shows that Wipro was considerably overvalued for the period 1999-2001 during the Tech bubble. The company was quoting great numbers with a 60% growth in earnings (9 year CAGR growth rate) from 1990 to 2000. Add to it the euphoria of anything related to the IT industry during this period and you see Wipro quoting at as high as 400 times its earnings.

On the other hand, the MRP offers a better view on the intrinsic value of the stock based on its earnings. Not surprisingly then, as the bubble burst the price rocketed down and reached its MRP. From 2001 onwards, Wipro’s price remained close to its MRP, thus indicating that the stock was more or less fairly valued.

Wipro quoted above its MRP values from March 2005 to December 2006.

In March 2006, it was trading at as much as 30% above its MRP. Thus, it is evident that the market was expecting above average earnings in the next few quarters; a difficult thing to achieve continuously.

The EPS for the company grew at an average of around 8% during this period on a Q-o-Q basis. This was a good time to sell the stock as the price rise was not supplemented by a huge rise in earnings.

Stocks at MRP from Moneyworks4me.com

However, things started turning south for the company post december 2006 with the PE contracting. The company registered a Q-o-Q drop in EPS in June 2007 and it seems the market over reacted to this with the price reaching as much as 20% below the MRP. The company’s earnings registered a drop, again, in June 2008.

Also, after reaching a peak in January 2008, the Sensex started plummeting with the fear of a global economic recession on the cards. Wipro was available at a discount of as much as 60% in December 2008 and March 2009; a clear buy indication.

Within 2 quarters the price of Wipro reached close to its MRP giving an investor, returns of around 50%. Today Wipro is quoting at around 10% discount to its MRP and therefore one should wait for it to come to lower levels to enter. (Read Nifty PE analysis)

Margin of safety

We all know about great value investors like Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffet, who insisted on always buying stocks with a margin of safety. However, it becomes difficult to confidently ascertain what the intrinsic value of a stock is and hence we end up paying a premium for a stock instead of buying it with a margin of safety.

Stocks@MRP helps you to ascertain the intrinsic value of stocks thus ensuring that you always buy stocks which are at a discount to the MRP. As seen in the case of Wipro, following this strategy would have yielded great returns and that too at minimal risk .

Outlook Profit magazine has published a special story on this concept titled “The Right Price” in their issue dated 9th July 2010. The concept can prove to be a very useful tool for investors, enabling them to enter stocks at bargain levels and exit when things start getting over-exuberant!

You can read more about this concept on our blog Stock Shastra. In the subsequent post, we will see how this concept can be extended even to the benchmark index Sensex. We will also take a look at a few stocks which are trading considerably above or below their MRP.

This is the first of a series of guest posts by Nikhil Kale from MoneyWorks4me.com.

Review of Retirement Book “Retire Rich Invest Rs 40 a day”

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

How important is Retirement ? If you are not asking this question to yourself today, You are bound to pay for this in future. Thinking about retirement in early age is considered Joke in our country, every body is just running around buying cars, home, may be invest in couple of mutual funds without any plan and buy life insurance, but Planning for retirement is still a very untouched activity. With the advent of “Financial Planning” word in our country, Financial Planners are now doing Retirement Planning for clients , however even that Retirement Planning is not proper Retirement Planning is true sense .

Retirement Planning is a much much more complex process than we think and deserves a lot of effort and time if you want to successfully plan for your Retirement years . We are living in a different era, and uncertainity of not reaching our Target in retirement is much more in these times . We need a much well planned approach and systematic planning for every goal of our life and Retirement is a classic case of it.

PV Subramanyam, a CA by Education and a trainer by Profession has written a wonderful book, named “Retire Rich Invest Rs 40 a day” . I bought this book and read it and here are some of my thoughts on the book.

Review of Book

Easy to Understand : The first thing which amazed me about the book was that it was written in very very simple language, It was easy to understand all the chapters of the book. The book starts with a very nice Introduction of why Retirement is more important in these days to plan and how we under estimate our retirement needs. I am reading Subra’s Blog from a long time now and his way of writing is very different than his way of writing on blog . I must say that I consider his book to be very simple than what I had expected 🙂

No Complex Calculations : The book gives all the calculations in a easy to implement “tabular” format and its easy for anyone to actually implement the learning from the book without diving into the complex calculations .

Step by Step Guide for self-planning : The book goes through all the steps of retirement planning in easy way and anyone can easily understand and do their Retirement Planning. It would require dedication to really go through the book and understand the various concepts the author has tried to explain. With some effort and dedicated mind its a great way to plan your own retirement.

Good Examples but lacks Graphs/Charts : The book have good examples in between , which woul be very helpful in understanding the chapters and what they try to convey. But if you are a kind of reader who like to see lots of Images/Charts along with text, the book misses on that part.

Introduction of Investment options : While it might sound that the book is only for readers who already know a lot of stuff , Its not true . In between, there is good insight about various investment products one can invest in and it gives  a fair understanding of what should be the action plan after one plans for his/her retirement.\

Book reading Session in Pune

There is a book reading session conducted in Pune on this coming Sunday on 15th Aug and Subra mailed me personally to invite all the readers of this blog who wants to join them . The entry is FREE .

When : Sun , 15th Aug , 10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Where : Season’s Hotel , Aundh, Pune (Map)

You can meet PV Subramanyam and Deepa Venkatraghavan, Editor Moneycontrol.com there . I would say who ever can go should definately go to the Book reading session and make the most out of it .

Buy the Book

You can now get the book shipped FREE to your Home at Rs 299 , and thats 25% discount on the price, Click to buy , Buy the Book : Retire Rich Invest from Flipkart.com

Buy from Infibeam : 30% Discount (Thanks to Rakesh for the link)

Conclusion

I am not an expert on any topic by any means and this review should be taken as my views on the book only. Overall The book is very good and is recommended to all. While the book targets people at any stage of life , Its must have for people who are in early stage of their life.