HDFC Standard Life’s pension super plus is a
unit-lined pension plan. It’s important to lock in your saving with plan after
carefully considering your options.
Feature
Anyone between
the age of 35 and 65 can buy the plan by choosing a term of 10, 15 years. The pension can’t begin before you turn 55 and not after 75. The
minimum annual premium can be RS.24000. Top-up can be made with a minimum of
RS.10000 with a five-year lock-in period.
How IT WORKS
You choose
the term to put in your saving toward retirement. This will be your vesting or
the retirement age. On vesting age, you may commute up to one-third of
accumulated corpus, which is the fund value (FV), and get compulsory pension on
early surrenders, there would be compulsory pension from the same insurer.
Fund Pay
Net of
charges, the premium would be invested in only the pension super plus fund. The
objective of fund would be to equity and debt assets to provide benefits. Not more
than 40 per cent would be in liquid and call money instrument, while equity
exposure is capped at 60 per cent of corpus.
ON MATURITY
If you
survive, you are entitled to the FV. If the fund did not perform well, the
regulatory assurance is that the maturity benefit can’t less than 101 per cent
of premiums paid over the term. Base on the assumed of 8 per cent, FV for
someone aged 40 putting in RS.1 lakh over 20 years reaches about RS.35.6 lakh.
ON DEATH
During the
term the nominees won’t get FV, but the premiums paid plus an interest of 6 per
cent per annum from each premium due date to the death date. Nominee can buy an
annuity or take it as lump sum.
ON EARLY EXTIS
If discontinued
before the fifty policy year, discontinuation charges would be deducted from
your FV and the balance amount will be moved to discontinuation fund to be
released after the fifth year. However, if you wish to discontinue any time
after the fifth year, the FV can be had without any charges.
ON VESTING
On vesting,
the annuity options and the rates prevalent at the time would apply. At present
, life annuity, join life annuity, life annuity with return of purchase price,
life annuity guaranteed for 15 years , life annuity balance of the purchase
price are available.
COMPARION
The new
pension system has a maximum exposure to equities of up to 50 per cent and has lower charges. The withdrawal at 60
is up 60 per cent of the corpus, but is not tax-free.
