Please don’t confuse insurance with investment. Insurance is a product that is aimed at providing a sufficient cover in case any emergency strikes. Investment on the other hand is meant to build a corpus to achieve your financial goals. If you invest in insurance products like LIC for your future goals like retirement, you will end up paying a high premium. But the returns that you will get will hardly beat inflation.
If a 22 year old opts for LIC Jeevan Anand policy for a period of say 30 years and 5 lacs sum assured,then he will have to pay approximately Rs.20000 per annum as premium. And at the end of the maturity period, he will end up with roughly Rs.10 lacs with bonus. That is not at all sufficient to cover the retirement expenses.
On the other hand,if he had invested the same amount in PPF , he would have got a handsome amount of Rs. 25 lacs. Add to it the safety and guaranteed returns of this government scheme. If your risk appetite is a bit higher then you can opt for ELSS funds. The same 20k investment per annum for 30 years would generate a corpus of Rs. 59 lacs !!
Hence based on your risk profile, you can go with either PPF or ELSS funds to build your retirement corpus.
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