ABSTRACT

The Indian financial system is such that which encourages investors to participate in various financial instruments which are provided by different financial institutions. The financial instruments are categorized based on the financial  needs, risk exposure and returns that the investors expects, but out of these financial instruments one such instrument where the portion of the investment by an investor  has a protection element which is popularly known as “ULIP” – unit linked insurance plans launched by “Unit trust of India” on the contrary  mutual funds seek to mobilize  different pools of money from all possible investors each such pool of money is called a mutual fund scheme. These do not have the benefit of protection element when compared to ULIP’s thus there is always a choice of difference and confusion among investors between these products. The present study takes up a challenge to portrait the decisions that investors should consider while investing in mutual fund and ULIP’s. The study also aims at creating awareness to the investors about the similarities and differences between the  products to provide that  investors while investing should have a familiarity and  a deep understanding about  both the products that guides and helps the investor to make a sound financial decisions. The analysis is made by taking into consideration the techniques that are adopted in general while investing in both the products such as expense ratio, internal rate of return and types of charges and their placement, future value of the investment and also the compound returns that are expected by the investors in dealing with mutual funds as well as ULIP’s.