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An annual review is a scheduled conversation with the plan, not a reaction to last week’s market. Set a date — many households use a birthday, a financial-year start, or the week after bonuses arrive — and work through the same list each time. The aim is to confirm that goals, dates and the mix still match, and that nominees and protection have not gone stale. It is not an invitation to replace every fund that was not first in a table.
It is not a week of watching screens. It is not a requirement to act. “No change” is a valid outcome. A year in which you only raised the SIP with the increment and updated a nominee is a successful review.
If you have an advisor or distributor who knows the household, this is the meeting that justifies the relationship. Come with the list above rather than with a request for a new theme fund. If you review alone, write the answers down. Memory is not a filing system.
A nominee on a mutual fund folio does not replace a will, and a will does not replace a current nominee on EPF or a bank account. The annual sitting is the moment to notice that one of them is still in a parent’s name.
The Deshmukh family in Sangli used the first Sunday after 1 April. In 2026 the only changes were a higher equity SIP after a raise, a shift of two years of education money into a short-duration fund, and a nominee update on an old folio. They bought no new scheme. Relatives who review only when markets fall still describe that Sunday as uneventful. The Deshmukhs describe it as the reason nothing else had to be dramatic.
A portfolio is a set of purposes with amounts attached. The annual review asks whether the purposes are still true. Products are details.
Opening the review with “which fund should we switch” rather than “which date has moved.”