Kotak Life Insurance Online

Kotak Life Insurance is offering a pure vanilla term life insurance plan called e-Term and e-Preferred term plan. This is among the latest offering of term insurance plans in India which can be bought online.

Before Kotak e-Term and e-Preferred term plan was made available, ICICI Prudential life insurance and Aegon Religaire life insurance had already launched online term insurance plans.

Here is Kotak e-Preferred term plan review. We will discuss it’s feature, how to buy, the step up feature and compare it with other plans as well.

Features

This is a pure insurance term plan among the types of life insurance policies available. So you get a cover and pay premium  each year -if you survive your premiums are lost; if you die, your beneficiaries get the Sum Assured as a lump sum pay out. Reduced premiums are applicable if you are a woman or a non-tobacco user.

The features of the term plan are as below. As you can see, the minimum age of a person taking the policy can be 18 years while the maximum can be 65 years.

The term insurance policy can be issued or taken for a minimum period of 5 years and maximum 30 years.

For Kotak e-Term plan, the maximum Sum Assured is Rs 25 lakhs and minimum is Rs 3 lakhs. Sum Assured is the amount of money paid out in lump sum in case of death of the insured person.

For Kotak e-Preferred Term, the maximum Sum Assured is subject to underwriting and minimum Sum Assured is Rs 25 lakhs.

Features	Kotak Plan
Entry Age (as on last birthday)	Min. 18 years, Max. 65 years
Policy Term	Min. 5 years, Max. 30 years
Maturity Age	Max. 70 years
Sum Assured	Kotak e-Term: Min. Rs.3,00,000, Max. 24,99,999 Kotak e-Preferred Term: Min. Rs.25,00,000, Max. Subject to underwriting
Other Features	Increase your Sum Assured without having to undergo any further medical examination by using the Step Up option which will be charged

How to buy ?

Both the term plan are plans which can be purchased online from the Kotak Life insurance website.

Obviously, you can also buy this via the traditional method of contacting your local branch with the assistance of a life insurance agent or advisor.

Here are the steps you need to perform to buy this policy online.

STEP 1: Decide the amount of cover (Sum Assured) you require
STEP 2: Decide the term for which you want to be covered
STEP 3: Decide if you want to choose the Step Up Option
STEP 4: Logon to insurance.kotak.com, enter the above details and get your policy.

The Step-Up feature

When you take the policy, you have an option of availing the step up feature offered by Kotak. The basic idea is to increase your life cover at certain stages in your future life without undergoing a medical test. So if you have a child or purchase a house, you can increase your Sum Assured to take care of the increased liability you now have.

For events like marriage or purchase of a house, the maximum increase in Sum Assured can only be 50% of the original Sum Assured.

For events like child birth or policy completion dates (1st, 3rd and 5th), only 25% of original Sum Assured will be increased.

There are two caveats to the step up option available :

First, the new Sum Assured cannot be more than 3 times the original Sum Assured and the policy holder should not have attained 45 years of age.

Second, the premium you pay for this is a percentage of  the basic premium as per below

If the policy term is up to 15 years, the fees is 3% of basic premium

If the policy is above 15 years, the fees is 5% of basic premium

Comparison with other plans

For a Sum Assured of 30 lakhs, below are the premiums across different entry ages and policy terms for a healthy individual.

Age	Term
	10 years	15 years	20 years	25 years
25	3100	3105	3120	3140
30	3195	3215	3355	3640
35	3680	3835	4245	4800
40	4895	5360	6075	7140

The premium of this term plan is comparable with the online available plans from ICICI Prudential and Aegon Religaire. As you can see below, if cost is your driving factor, then go for term plans from Kotak or ICICI Prudential.

If we were to compare the general features, they would look like below.

I really like the loaded features offered by Kotak and I consider it better than ICICI Prudential’s iProtect and Aegon Religaire’s iTerm. Kotak e-Term plan has a combination of the minimum age and maximum age which the others don’t. ICICI Prudential ‘s iProtect has a minimum age of 20 while Aegon Religaire’s iTerm plan has a maximum age of 60.

This term plan has a combination of the best minimum and maximum policy term  (5 years and 30 years respectively) which the others don’t. ICICI Prudential’s iProtect has a minimum policy term of 10 while Aegon Religaire’s  iTerm plan has a maximum age of 25.

In fact, Kotak Life insurance boasts of one of the cheapest term plans even in the offline mode.

However, since the customer is spoilt for choice and a lot of options have been made available, he will probably twiddle his thumb over what to buy.

Features	Kotak e-Term	ICICI Pru iProtect Option 1	Aegon Religare iTerm
Entry Age (as on last birthday)	Min. 18 years, Max. 65 years	20 / 65	Minimum – 18 years Maximum – 60 years
Policy Term	Min. 5 years, Max. 30 years	10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 years	Minimum – 5 years; Maximum – 25 years
Maturity Age	Max. 70 years	75 years	Maximum – 65 years
Sum Assured	Kotak e-Term: Min. Rs.3,00,000, Max. 24,99,999 Kotak e-Preferred Term: Min. Rs.25,00,000, Max. Subject to underwriting	Maximum – No limit (subject to underwriting)	Minimum – Rs. 10,00,000 (in Multiple of Rs. 1,000) Maximum – No limit (subject to underwriting requirements)

Kotak Life Insurance – Other features

Tax Benefit :

The premium that you pay each year can be used to avail tax benefits under Sec 80C and Section 10(10D) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

Free Look up period :

If you take this policy and are not satisfied with it, you are free to return this back within 15 days of receipt of the policy. Your entire premium minus expenses towards stamp duty, medical examination and premium for the number of days so covered will be refunded back to you. This free look up period is offered by all life insurers and is not a feature specific to Kotak.

Exclusions :

If the policy holder commits suicide within one year of policy insurance, no payout will be given.

Grace period of premium payment :

For the yearly, half-yearly and quarterly mode of premium payment, there is a grace period of 30 days for the premium to be paid. For the monthly mode there is a grace period of 15 days.

No maturity benefit :

Since this is a term plan, the Sum Assured will be paid out in case of death of the life insured and there is no maturity benefit attached.

Flexibility to convert into another plan:

You may convert your online term plans to any other plan offered by Kotak Life Insurance (except for another term plan). This benefit is available at any time during the term of the policy, but at least 5 years before cover ceases.