LIC pension and annuity plans
A pension plan, in insurance terms, usually means an annuity: you hand over a lump sum, and the insurer pays you an income for the rest of your life. The insurer takes on the risk that you live a very long time, which is precisely the risk an individual cannot manage alone.
That is the feature worth paying for. No amount of careful drawdown from a portfolio removes the possibility of outliving it; an annuity does, because the payment does not stop while you are alive. What you give up is access to the capital and, usually, most of the upside.
The choices that decide what an annuity pays
Whether it is single life or joint life. A joint life annuity continues to your spouse after your death and therefore pays less each month, because it is expected to pay for longer.
Whether the purchase price is returned. An annuity with return of purchase price hands the original lump sum back to your nominee on death, and pays a noticeably lower income in exchange for it.
Whether the income is level or increasing. A level annuity pays more today; an increasing one pays less today and holds its value better against inflation over a long retirement.
And whether the annuity starts now or later. A deferred annuity bought years before you need the income pays more when it starts, because the money has been accumulating in the meantime.
What is not on this site
The plan data here is extracted from LIC's published sales brochures, and no annuity or pension product is present in that dataset. Rather than point you at a savings plan and describe it as a pension, this page states the gap.
Annuity rates also change, and they are quoted per individual by age and option at the time of purchase. A rate published on a website is stale the moment it is written, which is a second reason not to invent one here.
If an annuity is what you are looking for, ask and it can be quoted for you properly through the official channel, at the rate actually applying on the day.
Annuity plans in this dataset
No annuity or pension plan appears in the brochure data behind this site, so none is listed here. That is a real gap, not a filtering error — nothing has been substituted in its place.
Work out your numbers
Each of these shows the formula it used and the assumptions it made, so you can check the result rather than trust it.
Common questions
- Which LIC pension plans does this site cover?
- None. The plan pages on this site are built from LIC's published sales brochures, and no annuity or pension product appears in that dataset. Rather than substitute a savings plan and describe it as a pension, this is stated plainly — ask directly and an annuity can be quoted for you through the official channel.
- Is an annuity the same as a pension fund like NPS?
- No. A pension fund accumulates a corpus that remains yours and can run out; an annuity converts a corpus into an income that cannot run out while you live, but is no longer accessible as capital. In practice they are often used in sequence — accumulate in a fund, then buy an annuity with part of it.
- Why does an annuity with return of purchase price pay less?
- Because the insurer must hold back enough to return your original lump sum to your nominee on death, so less of it is available to fund your monthly income. It is not a worse product, it is a different trade — more to your heirs, less to you.
Still deciding?
You can work through all of this yourself — that is what the calculators and plan pages are for. If you would rather talk it through with someone who does this for a living, that is available too.