It’s a male dominated industry – we’ve often heard or read this many times. However things have changed and women are equally creating mark for themselves in every area. Since families are becoming more and more nuclear i.e. husband and wife working in different cities/countries away from their parents, and their children studying in another location away from their parents. And with rising lifestyle related ailments, securing financial future has become very essential for independent working women.

So what should working women do in order to make herself and family financially secure? Here are the financial tips for working women:

Buy health insurance: Although this is not an investment product which will earn money. But it saves money. Every married/single working women should buy a health insurance covering their family i.e. husband, child & her parents. If you are the only doting daughter wishing to give best retirement life to the parents, then it’s a definite buy. This is because in the golden years, health problems are very common. So instead of relying on personal savings of parents/husband/her own, medical insurance will take care of most of the expenses. And very small amount of money will have to shell out from personal savings.

If your parents have crossed age limit of 60 years, then there are health plans for seniors offered by companies. Although the premium is high but they are worth it. So this is the reason why it is recommended to buy health insurance at a young age, be it men or women.

Get added as nominee: Even if you are working, you should get your name added as a nominee in important investments made by your husband such as term insurance, fixed deposit or any other. If you fail to do so and something unfortunate happens to your husband then legal route will have to be taken to claim the money, which is a very cumbersome and painful process in India.

Buy life insurance: As the earning power of women increases, the responsibility of securing the financial future of her family has importance. Because in an event of death, permanent disablement, accident, there has to be someone who can take care of her family (husband and children) and her parents or siblings. So life insurance is highly recommended to both working married and single women.

Invest in child plan: If child is totally dependent on women and providing best education and life to your child is your dream, then child plan is a must product in the investor’s kitty. This is because when anything unfortunate happens to you, then the sum assured will take care of your child’s education and moreover the interim premiums will be waived off. Few of the plans also offer partial withdrawal feature which can be used for medical treatment of the child during the policy term. So if you consider your child and his/her happiness precious then do not neglect child plan.

There are many companies offering insurance plans especially for children as follows:

Child Plans

Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana: If you have a girl child then opening a Sukanya Samriddhi Account (SSA) should be one of the investment product. Launched in the year 2015, the scheme is especially for girl child and offered interest rate of 8.6% for the financial year 2016-2017. The minimum investment per year is Rs. 1000 and only one account can be opened per child. You need to invest till 14 years and the scheme matures after 21 years from the date of opening the account. The maturity amount is very high. For e.g. if you invest Rs. 50, 000 per year then the maturity amount would be Rs. 24, 45,599 for the total investment of Rs. 7, 00,000 @ interest rate of 8.6%. Read more about SSA.

SIP: Womens are the best savers. And one way they can create wealth through dedicate savings is by investing in mutual fund. Through systematic investment plan, investing in top performing funds, women can generate high returns provided you are ready to take risk as MF investments are subject to market risk. Therefore you should take advice of financial advisor before putting your hard earned money in MF and also to teach yourself about it.

Here are the top performing equity funds and the returns generated. All these funds have a crisil rating of 1.

Top Rated Funds with Highest Returns

Source: www.moneycontrol.com

Invest in zero risk instruments: If you are zero risk investor, then there are many investment products offering guaranteed returns as follows: