Expense Account, Mint
This week, fresh guidelines from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) attempted to deal with some of the issues that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has raised in its notice to 14 insurance companies earlier this year ordering them to stop selling mutual funds that masquerade as insurance policies. The guidelines give the controversial unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) a five-year lock-in instead of the current three-year lock-in. They also tweak the pension plans manufactured by life insurance companies. From 1 July, pension plans will have to carry a crust of life cover and at the time of vesting, will have to annuitize a part of the corpus, making it similar in structure to the investor-friendly New Pension System (NPS) product.