Check these before you take the plunge on buying a ULIP. Once you have decided to buy a ULIP what are the criteria to choose one from the 100s that are available in the market. 

1. Demand the Benefit Illustrations of each of the plans you want to choose from.A Benefit Illustration helps you understand how your funds would be utilized and the benefits year-on-year.
2. Compare the Internal Rate of Return/Yield on the Investment.Internal Rate of Return will give you a comparison of the return on each ULIP net of all explicit and implicit charges.
3. Compare the past fund performance between options and with benchmark like NSE or BSE.Yes, this will help you understand whether the Fund Manager has been able to outperform the market at the same time keeping control when the markets are under turmoil.
4. The Insurance Company’s past track-record.General Background of a Company will give you an understanding on their idea towards business in general.
5. Check whether they allow you to keep invested after maturity in a scenario where say the market is down.There could be cases where you would not like to withdraw your investment on maturity due to the market conditions. This is not a very important feature, but will give you some needed flexibility in the long run.
6. Check whether there is a protection on the Capital, generally called Guaranteed Maturity Value.Yes, there are funds which guarantee the principal amount. This is good for investors who are sensitive on their hard earned income being eroded due to market conditions.