Article
This is how you can lower your auto insurance premium
Undoubtedly, auto insurance is brought to avail protection for your car. It saves you from making hefty expenditure in case your car crashes. However this convenience is not available free of cost. Of course, you have to pay car insurance premium for it However, there is something else too you need to have to make your insurance company pay for the losses in case something untoward happens to your car.
This is how you can lower your auto insurance premium
The absence of a maturity value is a big deterrent to individuals buying a term plan. This is not surprising as, for many years, India has seen only investment-linked insurance products being sold to insurance buyers. The culture of receiving a maturity benefit from an insurance policy is so deep-rooted that most people find it hard to believe that if you survive a given tenure, your insurance plan would fetch you no return.
KNOW you rights as an insurance buyer
WE often find ourselves asking whether purchasing insurance policies is really that important? What do we stand to lose if we do not buy insurance policy of any kind? By purchasing an insurance cover, one can not only protect one’s family from unforeseen situations financially but can also ensure that the goal of the family is not compromised and life goes.
How to choose the best health insurance policy
The good news is that awareness about the need for health insurance is on the rise. Most of the respondents to the ICICI Lombard survey said they knew about the need for health insurance. But insurers say some myths need to be shattered first
Is your cover big enough?
When Aegon Religare Life Insurance began operations in India in 2008, its marketing campaign focused on the problem of underinsurance in India. In the past seven years, pure protection term plans have become more popular but a large number of Indians are still afflicted by KILB (Kum Insurance Lene ki Bimaari).
Get the right health insurance
A good percentage of millennials are aware about the benefits of good health and adequate medical cover, but a large percentage still looks at health insurance as a tax saving instrument. A recent ICICI Lombard survey of 1,400 young people in the age group of 25-35 years had 75% of the respondents saying that they had health insurance. But 46% of the buyers said that the tax deduction on health insurance premium was what made them buy the health cover.
Best health insurance policies for you
How do you buy a health insurance plan? If you just settle with the plan your agent sells or are happy knowing you have bought the cheapest plan, there is a bit of unlearning and a lot of learning in store for you. A health insurance policy packs in several features and caveats. To give you a ready comparison, we designed Mint Mediclaim Ratings (MMR), which was developed by Secure Now Insurance Broker Pvt. Ltd. The full ratings along with the methodology can be seen here: http://www.livemint.com/mintmediratings .
Insurance is still considered an expense rather than a necessity
First and foremost, people need to be aware of the significance of insurance products. Unfortunately in India, insurance is still considered as an expense rather than a necessity to secure financial stability. But an adequate insurance cover can protect you from a financial loss caused by a crisis situation.
Benefits of Pension Products Bundled with Insurance to Consumers
With only LIC and few other life insurance companies active currently in the pension segment there is a huge potential for life insurance companies to the pension fund management and ultimately will have to transfer the corpus to a life insurance company to provide annuities. expand in this segment. Even PFRDA is regulating only
WHY health insurance is indispensable
WHILE a health insurance cover helps for sure, the cost of health insurance itself is not static; it continues to rise with the general inflation and the age of the insured. The rising cost of medicines and treatments ha also resulted in increased insurance premiums. In the times of high inflation, saving is equivalent to earning, but the good news is that you can save on the health insurance cost while ensuring optimal health cover for yourself and family.
INSURANCE & PENSION: Unclear Tax Rules Will Destroy Your Returns
Tax is a clincher in any financial investment. Knowing the net returns you will get is critical, as taxation can eat into your gross returns in a big way. When you buy tax-free bonds, the rules are easy to know. Your interest is tax free. When you invest in bank fixed deposits (FDs), you know that the interest income is subject to tax as per your tax slab.
Insurance Trends
A new survey highlights that en-policyholders are more comfortable buying insurance from banks after understanding product features and benefits in detail, as they believe they are receiving preferential treatment in services and continued security of their money. It says they consider life insurance to be a key instrument primarily to accumulate savings for taking care of future needs, like a child's marriage, higher education, etc.
Insurance: health over life
One of the joys of being a senior citizen is that your working days are behind you. This also means having working children and financial assets that make buying a life insurance policy unnecessary. However, what you need to consider seriously is a health insurance policy. Hospital bills are exorbitant, so having health insurance helps.
Insurance that you may want to avoid to cut costs
Insurance, they say, is an inexpensive way of buying peace of mind. Sometimes, people with resources may go an extra mile and pay insurance companies to get cover for things they consider dear to them. So, people may buy insurance for their body parts, pets, ant farms, and what not. However, for the common man, the question that often arises is whether you are buying the right insurance product and not wasting money on unnecessary insurance covers.
Studying abroad? Option for Indian insurer
So, you are all set to apply for a course of your choice at a university abroad. Among the prerequisites for getting admission in an overseas university is an insurance policy that covers you during the entire period of study.
Education is a marker of household and societal well-being
Comparing education levels with the penetration of high-value consumer goods provides some clues to material well-being of households. At an all-India level, the penetration of cars stands at 7% compared to 31% for motorcycles.
Think twice before claiming your car insurance
MAKING a claim every time your car gets hit may not be the most practical thing to do. Once you make a claim, you lose the no-claim bonus (NCB), which results in higher premium in the next cycle. On the contrary, if you don’t make a claim for five years in a row, you are eligible to almost 50% discount on premium. So, ideally, you should not forgo the NCB benefit for a minor scratch or dent.
Liability insurance takes shape via tailor-made products
Liability insurance is now increasingly getting sold via tailor-made products made not only looking at corporate needs but also sector needs. Both insurers and brokers say that even for similar needs, different sectors would have different products.
Tardy complaint handling and service hurts insurers
The criticism faced by the industry is severe because of mis-selling, poor complaint handling of claims and tardy servicing. Much has been said about mis-selling, so I'll let that be. Poor complaint handling causes considerable reputation damage. There is just no efficient way for buyers to address their insurance complaints. The general process is to write to the insurer a few times, then go to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), and finally the ombudsman. Each step has its own limitations.
Most insurers offer several sub-plans under travel insurance
The amount of coverage in a travel insurance is decided by you. Most insurers offer several sub-plans under travel insurance. You can choose any of these. These options differ in terms of the sub-limits of the extensions. A typical travel insurance will have 8-12 extensions. Travel insurance excludes costs incurred due to pre-existing diseases.
Three strategies for earning a regular income from insurance money
You may have insured yourself for a large sum, but will your family be able to deploy it optimally? Life insurers have introduced term plans that give staggered payments, but the returns they offer are very low. Here are three strategies for earning a regular income from the insurance money. Find out which of these suits your family best.
Read the policy carefully
An email communication provides a record. As a consequence of the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Act, 2015 and the regulations of the regulator, many terms and conditions appearing in new policies are likely to be different from those appearing in the older policies. Hence read and understand fully and act. Those 15 days are very important.
Is whole life insurance worthwhile?
Have you been saying ‘no’ to a term life insurance policy because you fear surviving the term and not getting any benefit? Endowment plans, which come with an option of whole life cover that extends till the age of 100, are an option. Many insurance players, including HDFC Life, SBI Life, Max Life and LIC, offer such policies. For those not convinced of a pure risk cover, here’s a brief on whole life plans.
T
Who Should You Buy Health Cover from?
Some life insurers also sell health insurance policies, both indemnity and fixed benefit covers, the latter being more commonly offered. What should you opt for? Most health covers from life insurers are defined benefit plans, where a prefixed sum (as a lump sum or on a daily basis, depending on the product) is handed over to the policyholder once a claim is made.
Do you need a high value health cover?
A health insurance floater policy of `5 lakh was considered adequate till recently. However, rising healthcare costs are pushing individuals to opt for higher covers. Cashing in on the trend, some companies are now offering `50 lakh, and even `1 crore covers. Apart from hospitalization costs, these high-value policies offer higher maternity, baby care, post-treatment, OPD and day-care procedure covers, insure organ donation and fund alternative treatment. They do not apply sub-limits on room rent. Some policies also cover treatment abroad and allow reinstatement of sum insured.
Also read: How To Become An Entrepreneurwhat Must An Entrepreneur Assume When Starting A Business
Should you buy bundled insurance products?
Bundling insurance policies broadly happens as product bundling or price bundling. In other words, it means that you are buying more than one insurance cover from a single company or getting discounted premium by choosing multiple products. Also known as the multiline policy, these kinds of products have become common in the recent years.
Term insurance after 50?
Life insurance bought by an Individual Is not for himself, but it is for his dependents. It is primarily a means of income replacement, where-in the loss of income of the policy holder is made good by the insurance amount on his death. For this reason, it generally makes sense to purchase a life insurance policy when one is in his thirties.
E-insurance might be made mandatory for all policy holders
The Life Insurance Corporation of India, the country’s largest insurer, recently decided to issue digitized policies, after resisting the move for years. However, it is likely to do it via an internal system and not by tying up with external insurance repositories, which help policy holders buy and keep policies in electronic form.
Don’t buy a health plan for maternity cover
S Prakash, executive director, Star Health and Allied, says maternity benefit plans are also introduced because of high demand from customers. Many people are not comfortable with the idea of paying for insurance without getting back anything tangible. Maternity plans help to sell the policy to a customer who might otherwise remain uninsured.
5 things to know before buying a life insurance policy
Like every novice investor, Sahil was also of the view that to save for tax benefit he needs to buy insurance policy. But since he did not know which policy will suit his requirement, he believed what his banker told him and bought two policies – one a general unit-linked insurance plan (ULIP) and other a pension plan. When he received the policy documents after few days, he thought he should verify the policy details and understand a bit more about it. He called up his dad who referred him to his friend, who is a financial planner.
Will IRDAI’s advertisements norms reduce insurance mis-selling?
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has issued fresh norms on insurance advertisements to protect the interests of the insuring public, enhance their level of confidence on the nature of sales material used and encourage fair business practices. As it is very difficult for the public to understand and evaluate the intricacies involved in the various insurance products, it is of paramount importance that the publicity material is relevant, fair and transparent enabling informed decision making about whether or not to buy a specific insurance product
Buying a car? Keep these in mind while buying an insurance
If you are customizing your car, make sure that the changes made to the car do not nullify the insurance. Minimum cosmetic changes should be fine. However, modification of engine or mechanical setup usually do not come under the standard cover. Also, there is a limit to the value of customization that can be insured under any policy. Do check with the agent on any such limits before giving your car that facelift.
Joint life, twin benefits?
Spouse covers are not novel. LIC and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance have had such products in their baskets in the past. However, the flurry of joint life cover launches warrants an evaluation of their utility value. Do they really come with any extra benefits? Can the proposition be suitable for all couples?
HEALTH insurance for alternative treatment
Some of the insurers, which offer health coverage for Ayush treatment, include Star Health Insurance, Apollo Munich, Bajaj Allianz and HDFC ERGO. There is no standalone health insurance policy for Ayush at present. While some companies cover the alternative treatments in their group insurance on request, other insurers offer the coverage under basic health insurance policy.
Health & the city: Should you go for a zonal cover?
IF you think your age, gender, health condition and sum in-sured are the only factors that deterrnine the costof your health insurance policy, think again. The city that you reside in also plays an important role in deciding your health insurance cover
Buy and manage your policy online
THE insurance industry is getting digitally savvy giving policyholders the comfort of buying and managing their policy from the comforts of their homes. According to a study for India by BCG’s Center for Customer Insight, one in two urban Indian Internet users acknowledges ‘digital influence’ in their overall purchase basket.
Pay time Working on Plan to Insure Bus Passengers
The next time you miss a bus, there could at least be some consolation. You could get the money back. Pay time, the mobile wallet and ecommerce company, is working on a plan to introduce insurance cover for bus passengers against a range of risks, such as accidents, missed travel, cancellation of ticket and loss of baggage.
Applying for life insurance plans online: Things to remember
Buying a life insurance is the first step towards protecting yourself and the ones you care about. If you want to buy an online life insurance, then you can apply for it through online portals of insurance companies. As a person seeking life insurance, you will be entitled to answer a lot of questions; hence you need to be prepared to answer these queries honestly, as the approval of your application will depends on these answers.
It’s Only for ‘Life’ but Ready for a Demat Insurance?
Insurers and repositories will soon be promoting e-insurance accounts to you as the insurance regulator is keen to switch to this new tool. To start with, only life insurance policies can be held as an e-insurance account. You can buy a new policy directly through the e-insurance route or convert an old policy into this form. Remember, it’s not the same as buying an online policy. “Buying a policy online is like buying a television from an e-tailer. The policy is issued in the physical form and only that version is a valid document,” says S.V. Ramanan, CEO, CAMS Insurance Repository.
Car insurance: Does it make sense to file small claims?
When Amit Sharma's new car met with an accident recently, he was unhappy but comforted by the fact that he had taken comprehensive car insurance and could get the insurer to pay for the repairs. However, a discussion with his friend put him in a dilemma.
Read more: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sells more than $285 million in Microsoft stock
November 30, 2021