Life Insurance: V Philip

Is there any difference between the taxability of a pension plan with life cover and one without it?
Tax laws say the premium paid towards insurance in any form is eligible for deduction under Section 80C. So, all pension plans sold and administered under the insurance domain are eligible for tax deduction.

My agent died recently. As he used to take care of all my policies, I am wondering how to go about paying premiums now. Also, all certificates were with him. Can I get those back?
Get in touch with your insurance company. If you provide it basic details such as your or father's name, date of birth, address, spouse's name, etc, it can search the policy from its database and tally records. The firm could then divulge policy details.

After this, you could pay premiums online or at a branch office. Once the policy is traced, you can ask for duplicate certificates after complying with the conditions.

I have two term plans: 15- and 10-years old. With these, I have generated enough corpus for my family. I was considering stopping payment to these and investing instead in high-return instruments? Could I do so?
It is good you have created a large corpus. However, if you stop paying the premium, your cover would cease to exist. So, the purpose of taking the term plan would be defeated. More, a life insurance plan can't be compared to any high-return instrument, since the latter would be a dissimilar product.

There are term plans available, where on survival all premiums paid are returned. These are called return of premium (ROP) plans. However, in comparison to a term plan, which does not offer any survival benefit, these offer a lower coverage at a higher cost.

Given the number of terrorist activities we are seeing across the world, is it worthwhile to buy a terror cover?
There is no separate cover like a terror cover. Death due to a terror activity is covered in all life insurance plans, unless specifically excluded.

The writer is the CEO of Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. Views expressed are his own. Send your queries at yourmoney@bsmail.in