What is the Widow Pension Scheme? Which is the best widow pension scheme? How to buy?
Life after losing your loved ones is pretty painful and the pain is in fact doubled and becomes unimaginable if the dependents need to face a financial crunch in absence of the sole earning member of the family. It is thus highly advisable to invest in life insurance schemes from an early age so that dependents need not to worry in case of unfortunate and sudden demise of the leading earning member.
Various investment made in life insurance products like term life and pension plans can assure that a lump sum benefit payment is made to the nominees of the deceased and a continuous stream of pension payment is made available to the family so that they do not have any difficulty in discharging the mandatory liabilities like children education or marriage and other day to day expenses.
But many a times this happens that when the earning member of the family is young and at a perfect healthy state they often do not take being insured seriously and even think insurance as a bad investment option with lesser returns.
Hence they undermine the protection and risk transfer factor which the insurance as a financial tool specializes in and thus pose a great threat to the financial security of his dear ones as life in uncertain and may end abruptly without any prior notice or alert.
There are various insurance pension plans available in the market which will ensure a pension is paid to the family as per the frequency opted and other terms and conditions of the policy. In this article we will discuss some options in front of the widows who have unfortunately lost their husband in the harsh battle of life.
If the women is working either at a permanent public or private sector job or have her own business with stable income generation at hand the financial difficulty will certainly be lesser than if she is a housewife with limited income choices. People employed in private jobs and as professionals or having their own business will seldom have a pension if they do not separately opt for it.
Although the pension system is also slowly being abolished from the state and central government jobs, in the quest to provide financial freedom and stability to each of the household in India both the central and the state governments have come up with various measures like national pension system and other widow pensions. Around 10% of the women population in India is living currently as widows and a stable source of income is much required for them to live life with pride and independently.
We will first list out some widow pension schemes started by state and central government in India. In Indira Gandhi national widow pension scheme under the national social assistance program a pension of 300 rupees per month is provided to widows of below poverty line category after attaining the age of 80 years she is entitled for a pension of 500 rupees.
Uttar Pradesh state government has started the Vidhwa pension yojana which grants 500 rupee per month to eligible widows. One of the eligibility to get this pension is that the family income of the widow should not be more than 10k per month. A provision is there to apply online for destitute women pension in social welfare department of the government of India. We see above and in reality as well most of such pension schemes offer quite a meagre amount and applicable only to people below the poverty line.
Widows falling in the middle class category or above should definitely plan their finances properly with the amount their husband has left as a legacy for the support of the family. Any amount paid in lump sum by insurance plans or maturing fixed deposits can be divided into two parts one should be invested in a good pension plan which can provide monthly pension for household expenses and one part should be invested in a fixed deposit or similar less risk investment options which will help to discharge future liabilities.
There is negligible number of insurance products sold as widow pension plans by private and public sector insurer. But any good pension scheme which provides family pension after death of the bread-winner will solve the purpose. There are numerous such plans available in the market and the customer should do his own research on finding the best one as per his requirements and needs.
A pension plan which is best or very well suited for a particular customer many not be that good for a different one. The customer should look at the claim settlement ratio, solvency and customer service expertise of the insurer as well before opting for a plan.
The policy can be very easily purchased from the comfort of your home in the online mode. The customer first needs to zero in to a product which is best as per his requirements, read the terms and conditions well, call the customer care of the insurance company to get satisfied with all the queries and questions they have in mind and then conclude the purchase.
A good medium of policy purchase can also be through a local agent who the customer trusts and have a good rapport with. The agent may also help the policyholder is service the policy or settle the claim as per requirement.