Insurers take cos to forum for tall claims, poor refunds

Tuesday, 06 May

However tall the claims of insurance companies may be regarding settlements of claims, record books of District Consumer Grievances Redressal Forum have an entirely different story to tell. Almost 469 cases pertaining to claim settlements have been registered against insurance companies in the last two years.

The list includes all the prominent companies including LIC, New India Assurance Co. Ltd, ICICI Lombard, Oriental Insurance, United India Insurance etc.

Nor surprisingly, the largest has the biggest share with close to 50% of these complaints, 227 to be precise, being registered against New India Assurance Company, which is the largest general insurance company in the country.

The other public-sector companies like United India Insurance, National Insurance Company and Oriental Insurance have 82, 41 and 36 cases, registered against them, respectively.

Among the private players, ICICI Lombard has 33 cases registered against it, while 18 cases were against IFFCO TOKIO. Two cases were against Bajaj Allianz.

"The number of cases is surprising for consumers. Most of these cases are related to health insurance or mediclaim, as is popularly known," says Shreyas Desai, a leading advocate dealing with such cases. And the common predicament, where the claims are generally denied by the companies, is related to pre-existing diseases, Desai said, adding that in majority of the cases, the verdict goes in favour of the complainant.

While the above mentioned figures pertain to health and non-life insurance claims, the life insurance companies seem to perform better, with only 30 cases filed against them during the same period.

With 25 cases against it, state-owned Life Insurance Company (LIC) leads the group, followed by ICICI Prudential with three cases, and Max New York Life and Tata AIG with a case each, respectively.

Source: DNA