The insurance sector in the country has been on an upward trajectory, and with the recent FDI liberalization, it is set to conquer new heights. This means more insurance players, more plans, and more options for the ultimate buyers. However, more options sometimes, mean more complications, and when one is spoilt for choice, making the right decision becomes a challenge in itself. Choosing the best term policy out of so many is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Even if you have selected the best plan, it becomes a task to ensure that the company providing it is up to the mark. Don’t worry though, there are certain guidelines to find out whether the insurance company you’re going to deal with is the right one to meet your expectations or not.
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Guidelines to Find Insurance Company for Term Insurance Policy
Take care of the following guidelines while making your decision:
1. Company’s Background
Once you have satisfied yourself with a particular term insurance plan offered by a company, check the company’s credentials. Find out how old is the company, how good are their finances, how stable, it is in terms of doing business, etc. Don’t just go with the flashiness of their marketing campaign. Dig hard to find the details and nowadays it is easy to do that with the internet. All companies have posted their detailed information on their websites and there are other websites as well that can give a lot of information about any company’s functioning and standing in the market.
2. Claim Settlement Ratio
It refers to the total number of death claims settled by an insurance provider in a year. The ratio is arrived at by dividing the total number of death claims received by the insurer by the total number of them the insurance company has settled. Like if a life insurance company receives 2000 death claims and settles only 1980, the claim settlement ratio of that insurance provider comes out to be 98%. The higher the claim settlement ratio of the company, the more reliable in terms of settling the claim.
So don’t be lured only by cheap premium rates, but also it’s prudent to pay more attention to the claim settlement percentage of the insurance company.
Note: Claim settlement ratio of life insurance companies in India 2018-19
3. Claim Management System
This is a bit tricky area to find out, but with a little bit of effort, you can get the right information. Knowing about
- How does the company manage claims?
- What is the turnaround time by which the company promises to settle claims?
All these questions are important to be answered beforehand. You do want the best term policy with the best company, isn’t it? Doing this research will help you achieve these goals.
4. Customer Service
Once you buy the policy, all further dealings and transactions will happen online or with the company’s customer service department. To find out about how they function post-sale of a policy, call their toll-free number to understand how co-operative they are if they are courteous or not, how fast their process of providing you solutions or solving your queries is, etc. This will give you a fair idea of how they are and if you should buy term insurance with them.
5. Check for Complaints Against a Company
You may log on to the IRDAI (insurance regulator in India) website to see the complaints and penalties imposed on the life insurers, which will also give you a fair deal of idea about the company and what sought penalties are imposed on the specific company and the frequency as well.
These are some of the major factors to be kept in mind. Depending on your further requirements, you can gather more information to help you buy the best term plans for you and your near and dear ones. It may be a bit time-consuming, but worth every second of your precious time.
The best term policy will be provided by the best company, all you have to do is make the right decision!