With a plethora of term insurance plans available online, it is easy to get enticed by insurers offering low premiums with large cover and hefty discounts.
Having said that, low premiums and special discounts are not the parameters you should look at while purchasing a term plan. Since the objective is to financially secure your dependents from financial stress in your absence, you should consider all relevant checkpoints before buying a term plan and ensure everything is taken care of till the last mile.
While buying a term plan, you should consider various points such as—how much cover amount your family would need to maintain their existing lifestyle, would the amount take care of loans and other financial liabilities, would the riders help you, and how well would it protect your investments.
One important aspect that you should stress on while buying term insurance is the insurer’s claims settlement ratio. What if your family does not get what is promised? What if they have a hard time to get their rightful due? If you don’t get concrete answers on this, all your efforts in paying the premiums would be wasted.
The primary check is to compare the insurer’s claim settlement ratio, which is actually the easiest thing to do. Insurance companies publish their claim settlement data in the IRDAI Annual Report and you can simply compare it online.
Taking a step ahead, here are few more pointers you should check before buying a term plan.
- Claims performance: How is the company progressing? If you glance through Max Life’s data, the company settled 98.26% of the total individual death claims in FY18, and as per IRDAI, it surpassed LIC in this regard.
- Turn Around Time (TAT): Before making the final purchase, you should see the insurance company’s claim settlement time, how speedy and hassle-free it is. The claim process should be instant like what Max Life Insurance offers. They have a process known as ‘InstaclaimTM’ to settle the death claims within one day from the claim receipt.
- Claim experience and assistance: Since your family members would already be reeling under lot of pain, no company should aggravate it by making them run from pillar to post for claims. Max Life Insurance appoints a dedicated Claims Relationship Officer on the next working day of claim submission. With round-the-clock customer support services, the company provides speedy resolution to queries and complaints.
- Easy process: Look at the number of steps your family will have to go through while applying for claim settlement. It should be as simple as Max Life does in three steps- Claim Registration & Document Submission; Claim Evaluation; and Claim Decision & Settlement.
In a nutshell, do not fall for tall promises made by life insurance companies and do your homework well. A little due diligence at the time of purchasing a term plan can save your family from spiralling into financial distress.
The following article is an initiative of Max Life Insurance and is intended to create awareness among readers
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