The questions our clients ask most.

We are a Mumbai-based boutique financial services firm founded in 1988 by Mr. Arvind Monshi Dedhia. We serve over 8,000 clients across India, helping them with financial planning, life and health insurance, mutual funds, equity and PMS, retirement planning, and corporate group insurance.

We are family-run, deliberately small, and grow almost entirely through referrals from existing clients and professional partners.

Our office is at Minerva Building, Ground Floor, Madhav Das Pasta Lane, Dr. Ambedkar Road, Dadar (East), Mumbai 400 014.

We are open Monday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM. You can also reach us by phone or email outside these hours — we aim to respond within one business day.

Yes. While our office is in Mumbai, we serve clients across India and an NRI client base in the UAE, US, UK, Singapore and Australia. Most of our reviews and consultations happen by video call, with paperwork managed digitally where possible.

Invest Drive operates as an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor and an authorised insurance intermediary. We are remunerated by trail commissions from product manufacturers, which we disclose transparently.

For services that require SEBI Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) status — typically fee-only advisory on equities — we refer clients to qualified RIAs in our network.

There is no separate consultation fee for new or existing clients. Our compensation comes from trail commissions paid by the insurance company or AMC, which are built into the standard product fees set by IRDAI and SEBI.

You pay the same premium or NAV whether you buy through us or directly — but you get hands-on advice, follow-up, and claims support included.

A useful rule of thumb is 10 to 15 times your annual income, adjusted for outstanding liabilities (home loan, education loans) and major future goals (children’s education, spouse’s retirement). For someone earning ₹20 lakhs a year with a ₹50 lakh home loan, that’s typically a ₹2.5-3.5 Cr term cover.

We work out a personalised number using a detailed needs-analysis — it usually takes 30 minutes and is free.

For pure protection, term insurance is almost always the better choice: a ₹1 Cr cover for a healthy 35-year-old typically costs ₹12,000-18,000 a year in premium. Traditional endowment or whole-life policies bundle insurance with savings, but the implicit returns are usually 4-6% — lower than what you’d get investing the same money separately.

That said, traditional policies have their place — for guaranteed legacy planning, estate creation, or for clients who genuinely won’t invest the saved premium elsewhere. We’ll show you both numbers and let you decide.

We are empanelled with India’s leading insurers and AMCs, including:

• LIC of India
• HDFC Life
• Aditya Birla Sun Life
• Bajaj Allianz
• Care Health Insurance
• NJ Capital (mutual funds)
• J. R. Laddha Financial Services

This lets us compare across companies and recommend whichever genuinely fits — rather than pushing whatever one insurer pays best.

Care Global is a health insurance product from Care Health Insurance that provides worldwide coverage for medical emergencies — useful for frequent international travellers, NRIs, and senior citizens whose children live abroad. Invest Drive has been the top sourcing partner for Care Global, which means we know the product, the underwriting nuances, and the claim process intimately.

Review yes, replace usually no. Surrendering an old policy and starting a new one almost always loses you money in the short term. What we typically do is:

Review what you have to confirm it still meets your needs
Identify gaps (under-cover, missing critical illness, etc.) that can be filled with new policies on top
Only recommend surrender if a policy is genuinely broken and the math still works

The process is straightforward:

Initial conversation to understand your goals, horizon and risk appetite
One-time KYC (PAN, Aadhaar, bank details, photo) — done online or in our office
Recommended portfolio across 4-6 funds, with rationale for each
SIP setup or lump-sum investment via NJ E-Wealth / direct AMC routes
Quarterly statements and annual review
You can be invested within 3-5 business days from the first call.

For mutual fund SIPs, minimums start at ₹500 per month. Lump-sum investments start at ₹5,000. There’s no minimum overall portfolio size to become our client — we work with first-job investors and family offices alike.

For Portfolio Management Services (PMS), the regulatory minimum is ₹50 lakhs per scheme.

Mutual funds pool money from many investors into a professionally managed fund. Best for most retail investors. Low cost, fully regulated, daily liquid, transparent.

Direct equity is buying individual stocks yourself. Higher potential return, higher risk, requires time and conviction. Suits investors with capacity to lose 30-50% temporarily and the temperament to ride it out.

PMS sits between the two — a discretionary portfolio of stocks managed by a professional manager, but in your own demat account. Higher minimums (₹50 lakhs+), more concentrated than MFs, less regulated transparency. Suits HNIs who want professional equity management with greater customisation.

If you started with 60% equity and 40% debt, after a strong equity year you might find yourself at 70%-30%. That’s now a more aggressive portfolio than you signed up for. Rebalancing means selling some of the appreciated asset and buying more of the laggard — bringing the mix back to your target.

It’s mechanically simple, emotionally hard (you’re selling what’s winning), and over decades it adds 50-100 basis points of return annually with lower volatility. We do it for you at our annual review.

As of the current rules:

• Equity funds (≥65% in equity): LTCG above ₹1.25 lakh/year taxed at 12.5% if held over 1 year. Short-term gains taxed at 20%.
• Debt funds: Gains taxed at your slab rate, regardless of holding period (post-April 2023 rules).
• ELSS funds: ₹1.5 lakh deduction under 80C, 3-year lock-in, taxed like equity funds on exit.

Tax rules change — always verify current rates before transacting. We’ll factor tax-efficiency into your overall plan.

A financial plan is a written document that maps out where you are today, where you want to be in 5, 10, and 30 years, and the most efficient path to get there. It typically covers cash flow, insurance, investments, retirement, taxes, and estate.

You don’t strictly need one — many people manage without. But our experience is that people with a written plan reach their goals more often, panic less in market downturns, and pay less in unnecessary insurance and tax.

A useful starting estimate is 25 to 30 times your annual post-retirement expenses. So if you want ₹10 lakhs a year in today’s money to live on, you’ll need ₹2.5-3 Cr at retirement, adjusted for inflation.

For most working professionals starting in their 30s, that translates to monthly SIPs of ₹25,000-50,000 in growth-oriented equity funds. We work out the exact number based on your age, current corpus, and retirement age.

Three things, in order:

Emergency fund: 6 months of expenses in a savings or liquid fund. Don’t invest until this is in place.
Term insurance + health insurance: Cheap when young. Lock it in.
Start a SIP: Even ₹2,000/month into a diversified equity fund compounds remarkably over 30 years. The amount matters less than the start date.
Once you have those three, then we can think about tax-saving, home down-payment, etc.

Annually is the standard cadence, and we offer this to all clients at no extra cost. Plus an ad-hoc review whenever life changes: marriage, child, new job, relocation, inheritance, business sale, or a major market event.

Call our office or your relationship manager directly — we’ll start the claim immediately. Typical process:

You inform us of the event (hospitalization, death, loss)
We initiate the claim with the insurer and provide the claim form
We help compile the required documents
We follow up with the insurer until settlement
This is included in our service. Most claims settle in 7-30 days; we’ve maintained a 100% settlement record for legitimate claims since 1988.

For cashless: just present your health card at a network hospital. For reimbursement, you’ll typically need:

• Filled claim form
• Discharge summary
• Original hospital bills and payment receipts
• Investigation reports and prescriptions
• FIR or MLC copy (for accidents)
• Bank cancelled cheque for NEFT

We’ll send you the complete checklist relevant to your insurer.

Don’t worry — physical documents have largely been replaced by digital ones. We maintain digital copies of every policy issued through us. Call us and we’ll send you the soft copy. If you need a physical duplicate, we initiate that with the insurer (it usually takes 7-14 days and may have a small fee).

Yes. Both can be updated by submitting an endorsement form to the insurer. We handle the form, get it signed by you, and process it with the insurance company. Turnaround is typically 7-15 days.

That’s entirely your decision and we make it easy. Your policies and investments are owned by you, not by us — so you can transfer the servicing to another advisor (or directly to the insurer/AMC) at any time. We’ll help with the paperwork. We’d rather you leave happily than stay reluctantly.