I am at a loss to deal with a lapse of Insurance policy of mine, due to unprofessional and irresponsible dealings of my Insurer, Life Insurance Corporation of India.
The following is the complaint I made against LIC of India, with the IRDA and Insurance Ombudsman. Both the agencies have not attending to my grievance against LIC of India.
What am I to do now?
"To
Insurance Ombudsman
Office of the Insurance Ombudsman,
2nd Floor, CC 27 / 2603, Pulinat Bldg.,
Opp. Cochin Shipyard, M. G. Road,
Ernakulam - 682 015.
Honourable Sir/Madam
Sub: Complaint Against LIC of India for having not resolved my
grievance regarding lapse of my Insurance policy to my satisfaction
Ref: complaint Ref 1314054600 dated 09/10/2013 as per LIC of india
I am a policy holder of Life Insurance Corporation of India. I have a
serious grievance regarding the lapse of my 'Anmol Jeevan' policy,
and also about the way it has been redressed by LIC of India, in
response to my complaint.
I made a complaint citing my grievance to LIC India via email to
“customerzone_ktm@licindia.com
a reply mail from Mr/Ms goergy oommen, LIC of India, Divisional
Office, Kottayam, via Email Id “lic_eps@licindia.com” on 10/10/2013. I
have attached both the mails herewith.
The details of the grievance are as follows:-
My policy number is 392615494, which commenced on 28-03-2003, sum
assured being Rupees 5,00,000/-, Policy Term being 15 years, servicing
branch being 78v (Kottayam), agent Number 15722784. I have been making
half yearly payment of my premium online since 2009, in the months
of March and September, via Netbanking through the web portal of LIC
of India, my login ID being '#######'.
I have registered my E-mail ID and two cell phone numbers in the
portal of LIC of India which is “https://www.licindia.co.in”, and I
have subscribed for SMS alert providing two working cell phone numbers
"##########" and "##########", as well as my MailID
"natarajsn@gmail.com", in the LIC of India portal. The subscriptttion
was done quite a long time back.
My policy has lapsed due to non payment of premium for the month of March, 2013.
I have mailed the to LIC of India, detailing the reason of failure of
payment of premium due to not receiving any premium-notice via post,
E-mail or SMS, till date for the payment date of 28/03/2013. Usually,
I receive a postal notice at my permanent address, responding to
which I was making payments in time via netbanking.
For March 2013 premium payment, I have not received any reminder or
Invoice from LIC of India.
As per the reply, (attached herewith this mail) from Mr. / Ms. georgy
oommen LIC of India, Divisional Office Kottayam,
has mentioned that "Sending premium notice/reminder with loan details
if any to Policyholders is not mandatory for insurance companies as
per IRDA rules. We send notice to help the customers." And also
admitting that "Email/SMS alerts is not available for the time
being."
I am to pay the accrued interest and undertake various medical tests
and submit the results, as informed in the mail, and pay the pending
premium amount to revive my policy. Also mentioned that the it is
confirmed premium notice was sent to my residential address for the
month of March/2013.
I wish to contend that it is most irresponsible action by LIC of
India that facility is offered to the customers by this mammoth
public sector organisation in its portal and relegating this lapse
of providing alerts casually that the “facility is not provided”,
despite the fact that customers are not prevented from registering for
these services. No disclaimer has been put in their portal informing
us that these facilities are not functional and it seems LIC of India
does not deem us, the customers fit for such information. If LIC India
do not provide their own published facility, who else is expected to
give?
Kindly note that, I am regularly getting E-Mails from LIC-Direct,
marketing their new policies. The last one from "co_dm@licindia.com",
to my mail id registered in the portal. Mails which are to market
their policies like 'Bima Bachat',"Jeevan Sugam", originating from
official LIC Direct mail Ids
"info@licindia.com". And I received the marketing mails even in the
month of March and September 2013, which coincides with my policy
premium month. I have attached one of those mails also below.
LIC Direct does have access to my mail ID, as a registered user of
the portal. So it is ironic that LIC doesn't use the capability or
infrastructure for alerting customers via Email or SMS. This proves
their capricious attitude towards the existing customers.
LIC of India does have the mechanism to send marketing mails regularly
for their new policies, but does not make a policy decision to send
E-mail alerts to the existing loyal customers like me. This attitude
of relegating current customers is shown quoting IRDA rules, by
Mr/Ms georgy oomen, as an excuse not to serve us the current
customers, but only be bothered with getting new business.
My policy would not have lapsed had my agent taken pains to inform me
about the impending premium date. Kindly note that I one of the
reason for registering in the portal is that I found my agent not be
dependable and in this regard. It seems this particular policy to be
of little value to LIC of India owing to its nature of not being an
endowment policy and also to the agent due to its lesser commissions.
Kindly note that I have not received any communication regarding the
lapse of my policy from LIC of India, till date. I came to know about
this only when I did login into the portal of LIC of India. Which
means that I was unaware I am no longer under Insurance cover since
March, which is a rather dangerous situation for me and my dependants.
The LIC of India has passed the buck onto postal department for the
lapse and washed its hands of from redressing my grievance in a proper
way. Mr. / Ms. georgy oommen
, LIC of India
, Divisional Office Kottayam
, has not mentioned the exact date of sending the postal premium
notice. LIC of India might quote some IRDA guideline for this not
informing about lapse too.
In the capacity of civilian citizen I don't have the time or means
to pursue this issue with the postal department. And I wish to
mention that the service of Postal department has been impeccable for
quite a long time here in #########.
I request you to kindly act on my grievance and arrive at a favourable
settlement for me from LIC of India, by allowing me to revive my
policy by paying the arrears amount, without any accrued interest
amount and without going through the expensive medical test
requirements, and also reprimanding LIC of India for their
unaccountability and mediocre service to existing customers.
In case of my demise, prior to the resolution of this dispute, kindly
ensure that my nominee is paid the insured amount.
Also, kindly find a way to ensure that LIC of India serves its
customers well by providing impeccable online services to us, since
there are enough NRI customers of LIC of India who might find it
extremely beneficial to have premium notices via E-mail alerts working
well.Please note that even Indian Railways has embarked on going
paperless via providing for ticket verification using SMS in cell
phones.
I have attached three pdf documents for your perusal.
1.E-mail from me to LIC of India :- to-lic.pdf (2 Pages)
2.Reply to my Mail from LIC of India :- from-lic.pdf (2 Pages)
3.Advertisement mail from LIC of India :- Adv.pdf (3 Pages)
'
Yours sincerely
Nataraj S Narayan"
