If you are the bread winner of a family and have still not thought about buying yourself a life cover, do it right away.

Express Term Life Plan is the new life insurance policy launched by Future Generali India Life. Compared to the company’s existing life insurance policy — Flexi Online Term — the new one offers a longer cover up to 85 years, and has options for covering accidental death and critical illnesses. However, there is no new feature in this plan that sets it apart from other term life policies in the market. Also, this is an offline plan. You need to go through an agent to buy it.

A look at Express Term Life Plan and the best option among life insurance policies in the market.

Features

The Express Term Life Plan has four options for buyers. Option A pays the sum assured (SA) under the policy on death or terminal illness of the insured. In case of total and permanent disability caused by an accident, all future premiums under the policy are waived off. Under option B — the ‘Extra Life Cover’ — in addition to the lump-sum payment of SA on death/terminal illness, there is an additional pay out in case of accidental death of the life assured. Under option C — the ‘Life plus Health Cover’ — besides benefits under option A, there is also a lump sum pay out if the policyholder is diagnosed with critical illness (CI) or undergoes a surgery for any of the 34 listed critical illnesses. Option D is the ‘All in one Cover’, where benefits of all plans are combined into one.

One can take protection under the policy until the age of 85 for life cover and until 80 for CI cover.

There is flexibility to choose premium payment term — 5/10/15 years or 60 less age of the individual at the time of signing the policy or pay regularly every year till the end of the policy term.

The minimum SA is ₹25 lakh. Under options C and D, the maximum cover under CI is ₹1 crore or 50 per cent of SA, whichever is lower.

Our take

There is nothing new about this plan. There are already many life insurance products in the market today with accidental death and critical illness covers as riders. While buying an accidental death cover along with a term plan for a little extra premium makes sense generally, for critical illness (CI) cover, it is suggested that one always buys a standalone CI cover. One reason for this is standalone covers are more comprehensive with their ‘exclusions’ list small. Also, with age as your requirements change, a standalone cover will offer more flexibility on SA. In the Express Term Life Plan under option C and D, the maximum cover offered for CI is 50 per cent of SA or Rs 1 crore or whichever is lower. In the accident cover provided under the Option B (Extra Life Cover) of the plan, note that the SA will be paid only on accidental death. There is no benefit that will be paid for disability following an accident. If you buy a standalone Personal Accident cover, you will get the full SA for even partial disability.

With the Express Term Life Plan, the cost of ₹1 crore SA term life plan for a 30-year male, non-smoker is ₹10,502. If you go online you have a wide basket of policies to choose from based on your requirement that may also be cheaper. The process of buying life insurance is easy and can be done online without any hassles. And, given that the premium is economical, it makes sense to buy life insurance online itself.

For those planning to buy a life cover online, look for policies of HDFC Life/Max Life/ICICI Prudential. These are the insurers with the highest claim settlement records among private insurers. In 2017-18, Max Life had a claim settlement ratio of 98.26 per cent; ICICI Prudential, 97.88 per cent and HDFC Life, 97.8 per cent. Claim settlement ratio of Future Generali for 2017-18 was 93.11 per cent.

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