Retirement Planning

 Q. Due to some accident or illness I may not die, but at the same time I may not be in a position to earn any more. How can I cover such risks?  A. There are two ways to cover such risks - you can either take 'riders' or standalone policies. Riders can be taken at the time of buying a life insurance policy or can be attached later, depending on a company. In other words you cannot buy riders separately if you do not have a life insurance policy. Some common riders are - accidental death benefit/ permanent total disability rider, critical illness rider, waiver of premium rider etc. Benefits of these riders are similar as their names suggest. In case of critical illnesses, mostly lump sum amount is paid at the time of diagnosis. If there is loss of income due to accidental disability or critical illness - future premium payments for the base life insurance policy will be waived off, if 'waiver of premium' rider is taken. Riders are very much affordable but can ...

Due to better healthcare and progress in science, people are getting healthier and living longer. It would not be uncommon for people to live quite easily up to 85 years in the near future. Moreover the life span of fixed income paying jobs is on a decline. A reducing career span has resulted in a rise in entrepreneurship which means people would need an entrepreneurship corpus at some stage in their life. Inflation also plays havoc all the time by decreasing the buying power of your money. Hence there has been never a greater need of building a voluntary retirement corpus for overcoming the difficulties of post retirement period than today. If one assumes an average career start age of 25yrs and an average retirement to catch up by the age of 55, then it means one has to work for 30 years and have to fend for 30 years on its own without any regular source of income. This is the ‘30-30 CHALLENGE’ that has to be surmounted. Tata Retirement Savings Fund is a carefully structured suit...