AGIF and Its equivalent schemes in Other two Defence Services

 

AGIF and Its equivalent schemes in Other two Defence Services : We have seen comments from Experts having domain Knowledge of Life and General Insurance (Like Col Shiv Rana), as well as general comments from other ESMs . The takeaway from these email posts are :-

1.      The AGIF provides Life insurance Coverage with meagre Survival benefits At Monthly premium of Rs 25,00 for a sum assured of 25Lakhs for JCO/OR  and that of Rs 5000/- for Sum assured of 50 Lakhs  for Officers.

2.      There are private players in the Industry who could provide LIFE INSURANCE COVERAGE  without survival benefits of 25 Lakhs for roughly Rs 150/- per month premium and  Rs 50 Lakhs Coverage for a monthly premium of roughly 300/-

3.      Comparing the  para 1 and 2 above , One can come to a conclusion that OR/JCOs are paying an additional sum of  Rs 2250/- Per month    for Survival benefit  and Officers are paying an additional sum of Rs 4500/-per month    only to cater for survival benefits. The survival benefits are found to be very meagre and it is NOT a prudent investment. If these additional amounts are invested in recurring deposit, the amount so gotten on maturity would be much higher than what the survival benefit the AGIF pays to its members . Similarly , if the amount is invested in Mutual funds on an ongoing basis , would fetch few crores to the individual member .

4.      Extended Cover and its one time non-refundable premium wef 1/1/2006 is          6 Lakhs for Officers and 3 Lakhs for JCO/OR  and the one time premium is 42,000/- for Officers and JCO/OR –?? Who retire at the age of 52 years ( for detailed age wise one time contribution for EI , please refer to http://indianarmy.nic.in/writereaddata/documents/infobooklet280415.pdf).

5.      It is high time for a revisit to be done on the efficacy and prudence of AGIF as an Life Insurance cum survival benefit option, if view of information given at para 1,2 &  3  :-

·       The AGIF is required to do  reengineering of  its work and norm  in line with the private players in the business . If for what ever reason , the AGIF cannot provide services at par or better than the private players , then the Option to change over to Private players be explored on Fast track basis .

·       The compliments out of the monthly amounts as mentioned at para 3 above should be reinvested in either Army’s own mutual funds or existing Government mutual funds through fund managers like UTI for much enhanced Return on investment to the members of AGIF.

6.       It clearly shows , there is considerable efforts to be devoted to make the AGIF contribution from members as a prudent live cover and investment option.

There is a requirement for the AGIF to come out with a white paper on the revenue and investments and Return made on their funds since inception . A social audit is over due and also the CAG should have a look at the performance of AGIF since inception .

Having said the above, This insurance(AGIF) is what the individual does to look after his family and he pays for it as a private and personal activity from his own resources meant for his living expenses .

 

Soldiering is a hazardous profession where other countries insures the life of the soldier at additional cost to the Government and A  new insurance scheme is required to be implemented for Soldiers being doing a hazardous profession for the sake of the country .

In the USA, every soldier is insured regardless of rank for a monthly premium of 27 dollars(Rs 15,00) for a sum assured of 4 lakh dollars ( Rs 2.4 Crores). This is made possible by the federal govt law by which the premium is borne by the federal govt. 

 

 

 

 

On Monday, 28 September 2015, 11:17, "Latif Vadakkayil col_latif2000@yahoo.co.uk [TriServiceVeteransIndia]" <TriServiceVeteransIndia@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Are the AGIF funds still invested with HDFC ? Possibly not , since  the change over of subsidised interest rates by HDFC has the follwing sequence of events .

The HDFC used to give subsidised int housing loan to members of AGIF , up to Say-1992.

Thereafter some where in 1995 , the AGIF member borrowers too started paying full interest without subsidy -This may be the time when the investment of AGIF must have been withdrawn from HDFC

The AGIF Starter giving their own home loan(full complement of loan) , much after 1995.

 

THE LARGER QUESTION IS WHERE ARE THE AGIF FUNDS GETTING INVESTED . ? Is it purely done on financial considerations/prudence ,  rather than menu driven based on  political/bureaucratic/senior Army offcicer's personal interests ? A white paper on this issue is more than over due .