Investing falls within a broader gamut of financial planning. It requires considerable thought and groundwork. Here, we have outlined some important guidelines to be borne in mind while planning your finances.
1. Do your homework
Before investing your money, ensure that you have done your homework well. It is ‘normal’ for sales pitches to be aggressive. Most sales executives are mainly interested in ‘commission earned’ or ‘business garnered’, which reflects in their monthly targets. That is why one only gets to hear the ‘best case scenario’ from agents/sales executives.
One should understand his own profile in terms of income, risk appetite and future plans and only then, make investments in tune with the same. Individuals need to know what benefits different products offer and how they fit into their financial portfolios before taking a call on investing in them.
2. Keep your eyes and ears open
Keep your eyes and ears open at all times for any investment opportunity that comes your way. The opportunity could be by way of changing market scenario or new product launches. Individuals shouldn’t lose out on any opportunity just because they didn’t know it existed.
3. Involve yourself
While buying any financial product, ensure that you have involved yourself at critical stages. For example, while taking life insurance, see to it that you personally fill all the details in the proposal form. Insurance agents many a times, used to, themselves, fill up details like the height and weight of the insured, his age and medical history among other things, based solely on their own judgement. They merely asked the individual to sign on the form at the end.
4. Inform your near and dear ones
This is especially true in case of life insurance. Inform your near and dear ones as soon as the policy is bought. If your spouse and/or parents know that you have a life insurance cover wherein he/they are nominees, they will be better placed to follow up with the life insurance company for the claim proceeds should something happen to you.
5. Maintain a logbook
Always maintain a logbook of your life insurance policies/investments. Individuals can and do have a variety of investments ranging from life insurance (endowment, term plan, ULIPs) to mutual funds and PPF/NSCs. A logbook should contain details about the same.