Rs 44,000. One could argue that in the endowment policy, we would be getting back an amount when the policy matures. That's true, but only if you survive! And Insurance is actually taken to ensure complete protection for your family. So, if you had taken a Term Insurance and died after two years, you would have paid Rs 6,000 and your family would have received Rs 10 lakh. If you had taken an endowment you would have paid Rs 88,000 and your family would have received more or less the same amount of Rs 10 lakh. That's how effective a term insurance is! (For the purpose of this example, a healthy male of age 35 was considered).
You don't need to take one term insurance plan for a very high cov­erage amount. Depending on your stages in life, keep adding term insur­ance to your portfolio. You could be opting for the first term insurance as soon as you get your first job. Then increase the amount by buy-

ing another term insurance when you get married and then maybe further increase it when you have children. If you plan it well, there can be nothing more satisfying than knowing that your family is adequately insured at any point of time. In fact, if you have a good term coverage amount, you can actually invest in riskier products over a longer period of time, knowing fully well that your family is completely secure even if your riskier investments go wrong. But yes, the earlier you take a term insutance, the cheaper it will be - that holds true for any insur­ance though.
When I was a child, I had heard a very interesting comment. God was asked - "What is the most perplexing rhing you find about life?" and He it seems had replied ''Any instant there is at least one person dying in this world but if you ask anybody around you whether he / she is likely to be the next· one, everyone, irrespective of their physical condition or age will reply - No, not me". We human beings are eternal optimists, which is extremely good for the progress of mankind; but do we actually know what will happen ro us romorrow? So isn't it better to err by being over-insured instead of being under-insured? Perhaps life is like the cliched statement on cricket "a game of glorious uncertainties". I feel it doesn't pay ro challenge fate - it perhaps is a bit like Murphy's Law - "if anything can go wrong, it will".
To sum it up, if you are thinking of buying your first insurance product, make sure it is a term insurance. Once you have taken more than adequate amount of term insurance, use the bal­ance part of your savings for investing in the more "attractive products". And for those who have a lot of investment products, but not term insurance, I would suggest you get one now. When thinking of just insurance, think term insurance; when thinking of invest­ments - evaluate all of the rest! ~