Hi LCI,
I've previously posted here with queries and I'm very keen to have another problem resolved by this awesome community;
I work in an IT startup. 1.5 months back we were informed that the company is trying to get insurance for parents at a discounted rate and they wanted to know who all are interested. I gave my name. On 14th March, i got a mail with the following content (bold/underline mine) :
In continuation to the our earlier email regarding the coverage of parents in our group medical insurance plan, we now have the final premium amount from the insurance company. Please find the same below
Cost per Life – Rs XXX
Sum Insured – Part of Employee Floater Policy
The above cost will be completely borne by the employee.
Please provide your final consent for considering the nomination as shared earlier by you. Let us know and reconfirm to add your parents latest by Tuesday, 15-March-2016. In case you do not provide your re-confirmation to include your parents in reply to this email, we will consider them as to be included in the plan.
I did not get time to review this mail properly for a few days and so i replied two days later on 17th March with the following:
Hello Ms HR,
Can you provide the insurance documents so that i may go through them ?
To that the HR replied that "As of now i do not have any documents,plz discuss in person to clarify your doubts"
I told her that i want to know what is covered in the insurance and other details like amount and clauses etc
So she shared an excel file as attachment with details of what is the sum insured for different designations in the company. The body of that email was:
Benefits provided under this plan cannot be accumulated or carried forward to succeeding year and shall automatically lapse at the end of the plan period. The benefits under this plan will cease for an employee, his/her immediate dependent(s) and parent upon cessation of his or her employment with the company. For this purpose, the date of relieving will be deemed to be the cutoff date.
No mid-term inclusions are allowed for an existing employee.
The premium paid by employee for covering parent will be recovered from employees in a period of 3 month (April, May & June payroll).
But still, there was no official policy document. I got that finally on 7th April. But the mail stated that the insurance is in effect from the previous month itself (18th March to be exact).
In this entire month i never gave my express consent or confirmation to be a part of the insurance scheme. In fact, my replies to her were clearly asking for more information, rather than giving my approval.
As this is my first job, i couldnt understand the document very clearly and it took me some time to get to it. I also had to confirm with parents if their existing insurance is better or worse. I had to do some research before i would give my confirmation.
But on 28th April, i got my salary and noticed that a big amount has been deducted as first instalment of Insurance premium. On 29th April, i mailed her saying that i would like to opt out and be given a refund (or pro rata refund). She replied by saying that this is not possible.
I don't understand why it is not possible.
Am i bound to continue even though i did not give confirmation ?
The policy document says that employees who leave the company will be given a pro rata refund. So... why is not possible for me to opt out ?
Any help is greatly appreciated !
I'm totally confused and lost.