Speaking at the launch, Amitabh Chaudhry, MD & CEO, HDFC Life said, "It gives me great pleasure to announce that we are the first private life insurance company to bring back pension plans to customers under the new regulatory regime. Saving for retirement has been an important part of financial planning, which most of us tend to neglect or postpone."
HDFC Life Value Notes Life Freedom Index, a survey conducted earlier this year to understand the current state of financial planning in urban India, revealed that consumers are skeptical about the adequacy of their financial plans to meet their desired standard of living throughout their lifetime. In fact, only 13% of youth and women are extremely confident that they have adequate retirement planning in place. Though the Wisdom investor segment (45 years and above) scored better in the level of confidence, their percentage stood at only 24%. This reflects that planning for retirement among all customer segments needs significant improvement.
"HDFC Life Single Premium Pension Super and HDFC Life Pension Super Plus are designed to build a sizeable corpus for post retirement income and offer assured vesting value with minimum guarantee benefits," Amitabh added. Both the plans offer assured benefit on death and vesting. HDFC Life Pension Super Plus offers assured death benefit of total premiums paid to date accumulated at a guaranteed rate of 6% per annum and an assured vesting benefit of 101% of total premiums paid. HDFC Life Single Premium Pension Super offers assured benefit of 101% of total premiums paid on death and vesting.
HDFC Life has also launched a traditional annuity plan, HDFC Life New Immediate Annuity Plan. As per IRDA's new guideline, customers need to purchase immediate annuity from the proceeds of the Pension Plan from the same company.