Insurance is a subject matter of solicitation. Every print ad from an insurance company has to compulsorily say that. It is another sentence which fails to make a meaning clear. Solicitation is what? To solicit means to ask for or try to obtain. From whose perspective? The client or the agent!! Actually it officially means that the client or the policyholder must ask or try to obtain insurance.

But in reality, insurance solicitation is entirely the job of the agent! So the difference between theory and practice starts with the slogan mentioned above.

In Insurance, life insurance and health insurance and motor insurance and other types of insurance, there is much that we need to know about. We need to learn about insurance companies, insurance comparisons, insurance quotes and understand the insurance products.

Here's a digest of links that will help you with the insurance information you need. Let's start with the fundamentals of insurance.

Fundamentals:

• Being Covered is both Sexy and Smart

LIC has launched a single premium plan today, i.e. March 1, 2012 which guarantees a maturity amount as well as a possible loyalty bonus and which looks very attractive. Let's dig deeper and find out the pros and cons of the new LIC policy.

But before we start, the perennial question of comparing insurance and investments. Insurance is of course different from Investments and we need not confuse the two. Insurance is generally a long term contract, and with potentially higher commission costs. However, insurance premium gives you a tax deduction and the insurance lump sums are tax free.

On the other hand, pure investment products like stocks and mutual funds sound much more alluring but comes with a risk tag. And generally, the common investors make a mess of the returns because of greed and fear.

While we debate the insurance v/s investment in theory, here comes a policy which combines the best of both worlds. Enter LIC.  Jeevan Vriddhi combines a risk cover (five times the premium), tax benefits under Sec 80C, guaranteed maturity amount, one time payment, liquidity (loans available after 1 year) and also tax free maturity amount. And not to forget a possible return of 12% over the 10 year term!!. Here are the details: