It is a tilt toward both growth and safety that has the potential to change the economics for distributors and the kind of products in demand. The numbers from Policybazaar show a clear line in the sand between building wealth and protecting it: Pension ULIPs have jumped close to 10 times in FY26 from a year ago, and there is no let-up in the buyers for Guaranteed Return Plans who want some certainty.
Why this shift matters for portfolios
They aren’t walking away from risk so much as ring-fencing it. According to Policybazaar, you will see a conscious effort to keep market-linked returns and capital protection in separate silos, which is a sign of how the approach to saving for later in life is evolving.
What does this mean for the investor? A few things:
– Don’t try to mix your growth and safety objectives; handle them on their own terms
– Put in place some savings discipline with systematic premiums
– Set your retirement markers down sooner to hedge against outliving your means
Where the money is going
You’ll find an older set of investors behind the rise in Pension ULIPs. If you are over 36, you make up roughly 75% of the total. Of those, 40% are in the 45-plus bracket and 35% are 36 to 45, with the 26-35 crowd chipping in 23%.
Policybazaar puts the 10-fold increase in these ULIPs down to people being more aware of what lies ahead in retirement, living longer, and wanting a product that can still create wealth. And when it comes to how they pay, monthly premiums are the way to go for both ULIPs and GRPs, fitting in with a salary-based, methodical style of investing.
Ticket sizes and contribution patterns
Pension ULIPs are making inroads with all kinds of income levels. You can start with as little as Rs 5,000, and the average is in the neighbourhood of Rs 8,000 a month. We have even seen some put in as much as Rs 30 lakh, so there is interest from the well-heeled and the experienced alike.
Then you have the GRPs, which are for those who like to be sure of their returns. The floor is a Rs 2,000 monthly investment, with most putting in about Rs 6,000. On the high end, we’ve observed annual premiums of Rs 5 lakh, which speaks to the pull of a guaranteed result.
GRPs find a young core audience
The base for GRPs is on the younger side. Take the 26-35 age group – they are responsible for just under half of the sales. In fact, 85% of the time the buyer is 26 to 45. Policybazaar sees this as salaried workers and young families who put a premium on knowing where they stand and being disciplined with their money.
And it is not just the big cities. Metro areas have 60% of the action, but Tier-2 is in on it for 30%, and as word gets around, you are seeing more from the smaller towns too.
HNIs, NRIs and the gender gap
Things look different depending on the segment. An NRI might put an average of Rs 2.79 lakh into a Pension ULIP, though they don’t do it in huge numbers, tending to like something with a bit more liquidity. For a GRP, they are in for over Rs 2 lakh a year on average.
HNIs are a bit more cautious. They will put in somewhere in the region of Rs 90,000 to a lakh in a Pension ULIP and the same for a GRP, a conservative way to diversify for the future.
There is also a distinct gender divide. Men make up 90% of the field for both types of plans. And if you are a man, there is a 90% chance you will add a waiver of premium on death to protect the family; overall, 35% of ULIP buyers have gone for that option.
‘We are seeing strong traction in Pension ULIPs among individuals above 45 years who are prioritising retirement preparedness, while millennials continue to drive demand for Guaranteed Return Plans that offer financial certainty and disciplined savings,’ says Sameep Singh, Business Head – Savings at Policybazaar. ‘Investors want both the upside and the assurance.’
What to watch next
In short, the figures point to a barbell strategy: some market exposure here, some hard guarantees there. Monthly payments are the standard now and we are seeing it in non-metros as well, with people planning for retirement at an earlier stage. The question is whether they can hold the line as the market and their paychecks ebb and flow.
