Reforms in the insurance sector were introduced much later  in fact almost a decade later with the  enactment of the 
Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act 1999, which facilitated the liberalization and opening  of the 
insurance sector.  There  were two options before the  Government of  India to  privatize  insurance  sector viz.   (a) 
selling of two public sector insurance companies  (LIC and GIC) to private  and (b) allowing private sector to enter 
into  insurance  market  and  compete  with  the  LIC  and  GIC.    The  Government  took  the  latter  route  to  open  the 
insurance  sector in 2000 and  LIC and GIC  were left  untouched.   Indian private companies entered the  market as 
joint ventures with some of world’s largest insurance companies. Coexistence of private  and  public  companies 
heightened  competition  and  Indian insurance sector witnessed  several significant changes such as a large number 
of  new  innovative  products,  improved  distribution  channels  and  the  introduction  of  world  class  regulatory  and 
supervisory standards.  The most significant product  innovation in the life insurance segment is the introduction of 
unit  linked  products  (ULIPs).    Unit    linked  plans  offer  long  term  investment  option  plus  life  coverage.      In  fact 
ULIPs are combination of both investment and insurance.In this research paper an attempt is  made (a) to examine   
the  rise  and  fall  of  ULIPs  across  the  private  insurers  and  LIC    in  the  Indian  insurance  market      by    analyzing  the 
distribution of first year premium  during 2003-14 . The materials in the form of data and information are gathered 
from  the  Annual  Reports  of  IRDA  and    Reports  of  Economic  Survey  of  India  of    various  years.        The  data  and 
information collected were processed  presented  and analyzed using SPSS version 20.  Mann Whitney  Test Z value 
(equivalent to Wilcoxon’s rank sum z test) is also used in addition to the calculation of growth rate and percentage 
contribution of  ULIPs  to the total premium.