You have most probably read about this already, so I am just going to do a quick post and send you the way of Dhirendra Kumar’s excellent piece in Value Research where he talks about what this decision means to you. His piece is much better than anything I could have written about this topic, and I hope all of you read the whole thing and pay good attention to it.
Excerpt:
Over the last couple of days, you may have heard and read in the media that the ULIP battle is over and the government has changed the relevant laws to ensure that IRDA continues to regulate ULIPs. Don’t believe this for one moment-nothing is over. All that has happened is that the government has decided to throw investor to the wolves. Investors will now themselves have to take the full responsibility of discovering the truth about this most toxic of all asset types and keeping their money safe from it. Given the enormous financial clout and the marketing hype of the insurance industry (not to speak of their tame regulator), expect no more than some cosmetic changes which enable insurers to give a fig-leaf of a PR spin that if there were any problems with ULIPs, they have been fixed.
All the reforms done by SEBI to improve the lot of retail customers in the recent past has pretty much come to naught in the face of approval of the ULIP product..In India where financial literacy is so low,expect further penetration of ULIPs as upfrong MF commissions have been removed by SEBI.
SEBI was fighting a losing battle from the beginning, but at least they tried. It would be interesting to see how this shapes up, but it is not looking good for the customers.