I walked into my sister’s house the other day only to find my brother-in-law with one hand on his head, some insurance documents scattered all around him on the floor, muttering away to glory in frustration.

I peeked at the insurance policy lying on the floor. It was an HDFC Children’s Plan. I think my brother-in-law has invested close to Rs 2 lacs (200,000) of his hard-earned money in this plan and it’s current worth is somewhere in the region of Rs 1.2 lacs (120,000).

A couple of days later, a senior developer in my team walked-up to my desk and asked me if the Public Provident Fund plus a term life insurance plan was a better savings tool for his child’s future than the — you guessed it — HDFC Children’s Plan.

I almost choked. Whoa!

Seems an Advisor (?) at the local HDFC Bank dished out advise that the HDFC Children’s Plan was the better option of the two. It’s honestly a better option — albeit for the Advisor and HDFC Bank and most certainly NOT for you. Thankfully, my colleague said he’d need to rethink and came straight to me for advise. You can guess what my advise to him was — to run away as fast as he could in a direction that’d take him far far far away from HDFC Bank and the Advisor. He’s now burning the midnight oil reading up on articles from the Capital Advisor archives.

I’m really glad that Capital Advisor is meeting its stated objectives.