After reading all the reviews I would like to add my view of birlasunlife.let me start it this way I was once working as an advisor for birla sunlife and all the policies I sold was with in the family only .
It is very sad to know that people were cheated into their policy (like forging signature etc and not being courteous with customers) .
It is true that advisors get as much as 35 % of your first primium amount .i was trained by IRDA and this holds good for any insurance imaterial wether it is LIC or sun birla or any other .Hence the first premium goes towards the advisor commision and admin charges and term insurance attached to the policy.
as and when you start adding premiums only your investment portion grows hence we have no choice but to be patient .any companies insurance policy is the same except as to how the investment portion is handeled .
In lic we never worried about the growth or investement as they were not transparent and hence we had the patience to wait till maturity and were happy and satisfied with the returns .
but when the transaction is transparent we crib about all the charges .but did we ever think about lic agents also getting the same amount of commision from the first premium similar to the private insurance players .
also I was a victim of lic where an agent took money for my fathers premium and failed to pay it in lic and my father met his end in a road accident and was not covered by lic and I had to run behind the agent 2 yrs to get the premium money back .but still had faith in insurance and had 2 lic policy
also I was an advisor birla sunlife and had to leave the country for better prospects ALSO I HAVE MY OWN POLICY FRO 2 LAC AND PAY AN ANNUAL PREMIUM OF 14500(IWAS NOT ABLE TO COLLECT MY COMISSIONS EVEN FOR MY OWN POLICY AS I HAD TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY EVEN BEFORE THEY GOT PROCESSED ) but still trust the they will be returns but the % may vary depending on the market and also remeber if you want to invest money mutual funds or stock market is the way and when you go for unit liked policy first is Insurance then is investment dont mix both