keeping policy alive and kicking

Not long ago, the Madras High Court ordered all vehicles in the state of Tamil Nadu to be sold with only a ‘five year, bumper-to-bumper’ cover. The order has now been stayed as the insurers have sought time to design such policies and obtain necessary regulatory permissions.

The court’s view was for a multi-year policy with a bundle of covers. We explained in the cover note in the September 6th edition of how such bundles, or packages, policies can serve us better and offer more efficient pricing.

Multi-year policies have the added benefit of protecting us from our amnesia to keep our insurance renewed!

Let’s look at some packages and multi-year policies.

A basic motor-vehicle policy from the point of view of what is mandated is a third-party (TP) liability policy. It comes packaged with its own damage cover to make a comprehensive policy and can be bundled with a menu of other optional covers such as personal accident, no-depreciation cover, roadside cover for occupants Assistance, cover ensuring a service vehicle while you are being repaired, etc. Bells and whistles come at an additional cost but they have utility.

Multi-year motor-vehicle policies are also available. The 10-year TP policy for two-wheelers was introduced in 2014, but not much has caught on. A multi-year cover for cars was introduced in July 2018 and was made mandatory for new vehicles, including two-wheelers, from June 2020. However, it was withdrawn in August that year.

Health insurance policies are being offered for a period of two and three years for quite some time now. It is attractive due to premium discount as well as the fact that one is protected from premium hike which has become significant. Home-insurance policies have been the package policies for the longest time. Householders Comprehensive, the policy of the nationalized era of general insurance, had ten different covers packaged as one, including personal-accident cover for domestic workers and is still on offer and many other options now available These include some multi-year policies.

Package policies and multi-year policies give a dimension of convenience and practicality to purchasing and maintaining our portfolio of insurance.

join dates

Another handy insurance hack that will save us skin if we forget to renew is setting convenient renewal dates. Life policies are often associated with birthdays or wedding anniversaries to make it easier for people to remember. If your policy is linked with tax benefits, you should meet the March 31 deadline and hence, its renewal date should give you enough breathing room.

premium time

You can ask your insurance firm to align all your policies on the same renewal date. They can do this by expanding some policies/shortening others as a one-time exercise and bringing them all up to the target date.

If a single renewal date for all policies at once is too much of a financial expense, spread them out on the first of each quarter or on an easy-to-remember trigger date for a few. It could be time for your Diwali bonus date or interest date on fixed deposits.

And if you are like a large number of people who misuse policies, make sure you register on your insurance company’s website so that you can access the policy details online for reference at the time of renewal, in your IT To check the details while filing the return or in fact, when you are filing a claim.

You can deposit all your policies from various insurance companies, Life, Health, Motor etc in one e-Insurance account and have them all at one place at the click of a mouse. This demat account, available through any insurer and even other financial service entities, will also come in handy for any policy updates like address change or registered mobile number to be updated across policies and insurance companies with a single communication. Will go

If you move home often, and policy renewal notices are missing, you know what a blessing it can be!

(The author is a business journalist, specializing in insurance and corporate history)