Kotak ULIP-Smart Advantage plan

POSTED BY Rajesh Khurana ON August 29, 2012 12:52 pm COMMENTS (10)

Hi, I am a doctor by profession and had invested/insured with Kotak’s ULIP-Smart advantage plan in July 2008. I and my wife both invested with yearly premium of 1 lakh each and paid it till july 2010(for 3 years) after which I have not paid the premium. While explaining the plan and giving the policy I was told by the personal relation officer of the Kotak Mahindra Bank-Jalandhar-Punjab (Mr.Rajat Anandani, Mobile +919971900771,who has left the Bank and shifted to Delhi in 2009) that I need to pay only for three years and then if I need I can surrender the policy or continue without any problem or loss.But to my surprise , when I wanted to surrender my policy and use the much needed money in 2011 july, I was told that I will only get 2nd and 3rd year money(value of which is same as invested-no gain) invested and the 1st year money would never be given and will be kept by the bank and the 1st years amount would only be paid if I continue the policy for the given 10 year period (It is mentioned on the policy that premium paying period is 10 years which I never knew ) which was never told to me in those three years when I was paying the premiums.

Now I am losing on 2 lakhs ( 1 lakh each of mine and wife’s) which is my hard earned money that I had invested but the bank and the employee have cheated on me and many such people. Is this the way of these banks and the people are left helpless and can do nothing because of the wrong and corrupt policy makers. I would request you to please look in to this matter and guide/help

10 replies on this article “Kotak ULIP-Smart Advantage plan”

  1. Kotak Support Team says:

    Dear Sir,

    We would be glad to provide the details.

    However in order to do so we would request you to write to clientservicedesk@kotak.com with your policy number and complete query details.

    We will look into the same on priority to provide the requisite details

    Regards,
    Kotak Support Team

  2. Dear Rajesh, you are plain lucky. Why? The ULIP in question is one of the worst ULIP which can be purchased by any person. Interestingly if you opt to pay all the 10 prem. (actually 3 prem. already paid by you hence liability is only for remaining 7 prem.), then only the insurer ‘ll return back the last prem. as a gtd, amount as a %age of first of year prem. which may be from 180% to 270% depending upon individual policy. Also for your kind information, to give this gtd. pay out, the first year’s prem. was not at all invested in normal ULIP funds.

    So after adjusting all the charges, if your fund is still showing 2L Rs. value, you are in profit. that’s why I said at the start you are plain lucky. Now what can you do? Dump this policy, receive those 2L Rs. & invest in such a way that after 6Y, you are able to cover your loss of 1st year’s prem. as well as some positive return.

    Thanks

    Ashal

    1. Rajesh Khurana says:

      Thank you Ashal, that was nice one. But pathetic situation in our country that these type of things are happening. Lost the faith in investing.

      1. Karthik says:

        Hi Rajesh,

        I think this happens to everyone (investing in wrong product (ULIP) by just believing what the advisor or Relationship manager says). It happened to me too. But the good thing is that it was an eye opener for me.

        Before buying the ULIP, I was not aware of many things in the investments space. But now, I can check the brochure of any ULIP / Savings / Insurance plan and find out where the catch is and tell how useless the plan is.

      2. Dear Rajesh, it’s our hard earned money at stake so we should take the responsibility for the proper investment of the same. Before investing a single penny, please make it a habit to question each & every thing. Question a lot till the things are clear to you. In case you are in doubt, simple say ‘NO’. A Plain No ‘ll save a lot of energy of you in the later years of your life.

        Thanks

        Ashal

  3. Harsha Vardhan says:

    In case of most of the older ULIPs, if you have paid the premium for three consecutive years, you can withdraw the funds after 5 years- without any surrender charges (minus management fees, fund charges etc. of course!)

    Is it any different in case of this ULIP? Better to check with Kotak again and get it reconfirmed.

    1. Rajesh Khurana says:

      Thank you Harshvardhan, will surely check with the kotak people

  4. Ramesh says:

    More blame on the buyer than on the seller, in my opinion.

    Only good thing that can come out of this is to take a good lesson from this. And before putting your money in any other thing, to read about it properly.

    Also, go through this:

    http://www.subramoney.com/2012/08/ulip-buying-mistakes/

  5. Rajesh

    Sadly , this is not your story ,its every ULIP investor story who has taken the agent/seller words and didnt care to check the policy.

    I would say there are two people to blame

    1. Agent , who has not done his bit and broken his ethics .
    2. You , who over relied on bank official and taken each word of his as truth . Only if you have a proof of what you are saying , then you can pursue the matter. Else I dont think there is any way out of this.

    Manish

    1. Rajesh Khurana says:

      Thanks a lot Manish for making me a member on the forum and answering the query but as a lay man not many people read the documents and finally suffer as I am suffering and moreover the employees of the bank say that Sir this is a bad policy and there are many hidden claws in it.But lets see what happens. will check out in consumer court and have also posted it on other forums.What is your opinion on knocking the consumer court doors.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.