A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN UNIT-LINKED LIFE INSURANCE AND OTHER ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS

Abstract

The unit-linked life insurance has two important components: protection and investment. The protection component refers to the insured sum in case of the occurrence of insured risks and the investment component refers to the policyholder’s account that represents the present value of the units from the chosen investment funds.These financial products invest most of the premium paid by the insured person in the funds managed by the insurance company or an external administrator and the lower part of the premium is intended to cover the insured risk (death, disability, etc). An important component of the activity carried out by the insurance companies is the investment of the premiums paid by policyholders in various types of assets, in order to obtain higher yields than those guaranteed by the insurance contracts, while providing the necessary liquidity for the payment of insurance claims in case of occurrence of the assumed risks. This research contributes to the existing literature regarding the study of investment alternatives, with an exclusive focus on the investment in unit-linked life insurance. A special place in this study is the presentation of investments in unit-linked insurance versus other types of financial investments: deposits, treasury bills, shares (BET), currency (EURO) and gold.

Keywords

• Unit-linked life insurance
• alternative investments
• investment programs
• protection component
• investment component