Points to consider before buying insurance products
Educating Insurance Buying
Various options are available to one get herself or himself insured which can be opted as per the need and requirements; it may be personal, accidental, motor car, home theft, travel, crop security, health, children insurance, business bussiness and others.
In this post, points to consider before buying insurance prodcuts have been presented which may help insurance buyers.
Generally, it has been observed that the insured person got a shock when at the time of claim the insured is informed by the insurance company that the claims made are not covered in the insurance policy which he or she has bought which is mainly because at the time of buying the insurance many of the hidden clauses are not explained by the insurance agent nor the person going to buy the insurance has time to go through the lengthy documents most of the times a hard copy of which is not provided and only terms and conditions in the digital form that too on the mobile phone and verbal details are provided which is not an easy task to go through because of which the buyer generally signed the insurance document on the dotted lines without actually going through it.
In such cases, even the regulatory bodies, such as the IRDA is not in a position to give relief to the claimant just because of the fact that the same is not covered in the insurance bought by the claimant. Because of this, just to avoid such a situation, it is always advisable to go through every point of terms and conditions of the insurance document to avoid hardship later.
Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India
The Institute for Global Insurance Education: Welcome
The insurance buyer should note down all the points of his/her concern well in advance and seek clarification from the insurance agent. If the insurance agency doesn’t satisfy the requirement of the buyer, the buyer can get included in the insurance cover for which some additional amount, if required to be paid is worth paying to ensure that all points of concern are included in the final print document.
It is so more important, especially when buying travel insurance to countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and European countries where medical expenses are beyond the reach of the common person, especially for the travelers which have also pertinent because of the COVID and the buyers while buying travel insurance must ensure that expanses for COVID are covered in the term plan.
Do not believe the Insurance Officer, rather read the print document and ensure without failure that expanses for COVID and other details as per the buyer requirement have found their place in the document. This is more so important while buying online which is true for all types of insurance instruments. There may be many hidden conditions that the insurance officer may not disclose and discuss with the buyer because of which getting the hard printed copy mentioning all the conditions of coverage and also what is not covered is the best option to obtain.
The insurance agent or the company is bound to provide the hard copy and is not an obligation on the part of the buyer. Such documents must be obtained from more than one agency and the best suitable one must be kept and modifications, if any must be got done.
In the next post, we shall discuss the types of insurance currently available which is true for most countries of the World. Further, after estimating the requirements, the buyer can get quotes from different insurance companies and choose the one which covers the most his/her points of concern and the same time the insurance company that offers the lowest cost/rate can be selected but at the same, the time track record of the prosperous company must also be looked into, especially what is the ratio of approved claims to the number of claims submitted.
While one may also go through the period which is taken by the insurance company to approve, sanction, and transfer money to the claimant’s bank account. One must go for paperless insurance (plastic card) to avoid the hardships that are nowadays provided by most insurance companies. Users may also like to consider online reviews and information available in the media to take the final decision.