1. Your insurance-buying decision should depend on your own comfort level - whether insurer's website, aggregator's website, insurer offline directly, or through agent / broker - like mine are all from the first.
2. As per IRDAI's data for 2017-18 in its annual report, health policies were sold through:-
a) Individual agents - 60%
b) Corporate agents (banks, etc.) - 20%
c) Direct (offline) - 13%
d) Brokers - 4%
e) Direct (online) - 2%
f) Web aggregators - 1%
3. Likely reasons for this pattern of sales channels in health policies are:-
a) Lack of understanding various products offered,
b) Complexity of clauses, sub-clauses, exclusions and other conditions,
c) Insignificant differential price incentive among sales channels,
d) Inclination towards face-to-face negotiations with sales channels,
e) Avoidance of anxiety towards future claims,
f) Tendency of transferring ownership of claims to sales channels,
g) Replicating the buying process of policies bought earlier due to trust factor.
4. Notwithstanding the sales channel preferred, an individual should be aware that:-
a) All after-sales services are done by the insurer and not by sales channels,
b) At the time of hospitalization, insurer (or its TPA) has to be contacted directly, and all claims have to be filed directly,
c) All claims can be got approved, even faster, by a particular sales channel is a myth,
d) For settlements, it's only the individual who matters for an insurer, and not the sales channels or how premiums were paid,
e) Rejection of claims is mainly due to non-disclosure of facts, purposely or inandvertently, at the time of buying policies through any sales channel,
f) It's in one's own interest (not sales channels) to ensure that every detail in application form is filled yourself only (not by sales channels representatives), without any margin of error, even cross-checking and pointing out anything that is missing or inaccurate in the policy drawn up, and ensuring it is rectified, instead of coming to know of these errors only when calamity strikes,
g) Medical tests decisively shift onus on insurer, and opting for them if offered, rules out chances of claim being denied on account of pre-existing diseases (PED), as courts have ruled that since insurer had subjected policy holder to medical tests and then fixed premium, claims can't be denied.
h) Opting for insurer's direct online premium payment facility can be a safeguard from onus of giving cheques each time, without missing any besides ease of tracking them, while having policy details in front every time.
2. As per IRDAI's data for 2017-18 in its annual report, health policies were sold through:-
a) Individual agents - 60%
b) Corporate agents (banks, etc.) - 20%
c) Direct (offline) - 13%
d) Brokers - 4%
e) Direct (online) - 2%
f) Web aggregators - 1%
3. Likely reasons for this pattern of sales channels in health policies are:-
a) Lack of understanding various products offered,
b) Complexity of clauses, sub-clauses, exclusions and other conditions,
c) Insignificant differential price incentive among sales channels,
d) Inclination towards face-to-face negotiations with sales channels,
e) Avoidance of anxiety towards future claims,
f) Tendency of transferring ownership of claims to sales channels,
g) Replicating the buying process of policies bought earlier due to trust factor.
4. Notwithstanding the sales channel preferred, an individual should be aware that:-
a) All after-sales services are done by the insurer and not by sales channels,
b) At the time of hospitalization, insurer (or its TPA) has to be contacted directly, and all claims have to be filed directly,
c) All claims can be got approved, even faster, by a particular sales channel is a myth,
d) For settlements, it's only the individual who matters for an insurer, and not the sales channels or how premiums were paid,
e) Rejection of claims is mainly due to non-disclosure of facts, purposely or inandvertently, at the time of buying policies through any sales channel,
f) It's in one's own interest (not sales channels) to ensure that every detail in application form is filled yourself only (not by sales channels representatives), without any margin of error, even cross-checking and pointing out anything that is missing or inaccurate in the policy drawn up, and ensuring it is rectified, instead of coming to know of these errors only when calamity strikes,
g) Medical tests decisively shift onus on insurer, and opting for them if offered, rules out chances of claim being denied on account of pre-existing diseases (PED), as courts have ruled that since insurer had subjected policy holder to medical tests and then fixed premium, claims can't be denied.
h) Opting for insurer's direct online premium payment facility can be a safeguard from onus of giving cheques each time, without missing any besides ease of tracking them, while having policy details in front every time.