In my personal opinion term insurance always makes sense. If the idea of you paying the premium which you are not going to get back doesnt suit you , you can have atleast part of our policies in term insurance. For e.g A money back unit linked investment plan for a person aged 30 22000 is yearly premium payable for 25 years on cover of around 500000. The first 2 years premium in ULIPS are gone down the drain anyways as policy charges , admin charges, insurance charges and annual charges comes to around 15% of your face amount i.e for 500000 policy you would be paying aroun 60000 to 70000 just as charges (which i am sure no insurance advisor will explain to you , you will realise that only after you get the papers). No doubt you will be covered with insurance from date of commencement of policy . So instead a wise view would be pay for term insurace and the amount which you save which you would have paid for ulips you can invest in SIPs. Unfortunately no agent will tell u to go for term insurance since it is not lucrative and doesnt give good commission to them.
