Only the crooks are insured.

Seems that most people allow their life insurance policies to lapse, losing all the money they have paid as premiums. In the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, countries 90% of people are still insured after 1 year and 60-65% after 5 years, whereas in India the industry average is 58% after 1 year, LIC holding onto 59%, and after 5 years only 28% were still insured, with the LIC holding onto 44%. How much do investors lose on these products? Apparently there is no clear answer because the industry does not want to its shady practices coming to light but a couple of years back it was estimated that investors lost Rs 1.5 trillion in one of these schemes. People buy schemes linked to life insurance to reduce their tax burden because you start paying income tax on earnings above Rs 250,000, which is around $4000, per year. People are enticed by agents with promises of doubling their money in 5 years without being told of the heavy costs upfront which reduce their investments to almost nothing. Our previous Finance Minister said," In my view, the reason why insurance is stumbling in India is because of mis-selling of products and complex products." Absolutely spot on but what are you going to do about it? Turns out, not much. Why, surely it is the duty of the government to protect people from being cheated? Because the government uses our money to finance its deficit. The big daddy of the insurance sector in India is the Life Insurance Corporation, which being controlled by the government, allows it to raid its coffers at will, as when the LIC spent Rs 120 billion to buy ONGC shares that the same Finance Minister was selling to balance his books. In 2011-12 life insurance companies bought Rs 4.68 trillion of government securities, which was 91% of its fiscal deficit, while in 2012-13 the amount was Rs 5.12 trillion, which was 100% of the fiscal deficit. Then there are the scam artists who phone people, claiming to be from the insurance regulator, the IRDA, and make them terminate their old policies to start new ones, losing all the money in the old one. It is easy to protect customers. Clearly show the insurance and investment amounts separately because the money paid for insurance is not refundable. Print commissions in bold letters alongside each product and clearly mention penalties for early redemption. Politicians will not do it and we have no power. Pressing a button on a voting machine every 5 years is useless because the mass of people are easily bribed to vote for  handouts, as the victory of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi showed. So middle class people have opted out of the nation, choosing their own solutions and allowing the politicians to loot. Without rule of law we have no insurance. Only the crooks are insured.