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Unit linked risk plans are doing roaring business agreed but if the recent reports are any indication a shake up is on the cards. The mutual fund industry is all set to get aggressive to counter competition from the insurance industry's unit linked risk products. For mutual funds the unit linked insurance products launched by life insurance companies are an encroachment on their territory. Consider this: Around 80 per cent of the premium income of life insurers has come in through unit-linked plans in 2004 thanks to the boom in the equity markets.
Which means mutual fund companies are losing out on a huge market that would have otherwise been theirs. To put an end to such a situation they are toying with the idea of aggressively publicizing its products through celebrity endorsements which mutual funds feel will give a never-before fillip to its unit linked schemes.
Unit linked insurance products have been doing brisk business and insurers have been coming out with several such products with slight variations to suit the changing needs of the customers. These products are investment avenues that provide market related returns to the investor with an element of insurance thrown in. For the customer the attraction of market related returns with insurance is an attractive option. On the contrary though mutual fund companies also have unit-linked products what is absent is the insurance cover.
But the grouse of mutual funds is that they have to adhere to stringent regulations that are absent for insurance companies when the products are almost similar. While for insurance companies it is not mandatory to disclose the various expenses related to unit linked risk products such as expense ratio and brokerages among others, for mutual fund companies it is mandatory. The Association of Mutual Funds will soon be setting up a committee to work out an advertising strategy after which it plans to approach SEBI to take it from there.
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