Trace your unclaimed insurance amount

You may ask who forgets to collect any amount that is due to him especially benefit amounts due under an insurance policy. Well the truth is there are lots of individuals who do not collect the insurance amount due to them. The data shows that the amount of unclaimed of unclaimed money lying with insurers in ’12-’13 is Rs. 4866crores. This unclaimed amount includes money payable to a policyholder as a death claim, maturity claims, survival benefits, premium due for refund or it may be premium deposited but not adjusted against premium or indemnity claims.

The next question you may as is how does someone forget to collect their insurance money? One reason could be that the claims that an insurer has settled may not be paid as a result of ongoing litigations. The policyholder may have forgotten to encash the cheque given by the insurer or the cheque may have gotten lost or misplaced in transit.

In the latest policyholder friendly step taken by the regulator, IRDA has asked insurers to display information on any unclaimed amount above Rs. 1,000 on their websites. Any amount unclaimed beyond six months from the due date for settlement should be displayed on the company website. And the insurer is bound to update this detail every six months.

A policyholder can fill out his name, policy number, PAN and date of birth on the website and, if the information in any two fields matches with the insurer's records, the unclaimed amount lying with the company will be displayed.

Further IRDA has requested insurers to collect the bank details of the policyholders by retaining a copy of the cheque used to pay premium so that the claims can be directly paid to the account of the policyholder. This move will reduce the chances of cheque loss and delay in encashment of cheques. Moreover, this move will enable insurers to refund premium if required. Insurers are exempted from collecting cancelled cheque where payment of premium is made by the proposer through cheque from his/her bank account. Bank details need not be collected from the policyholders in cases where the premium is less than Rs.25000/annum.

These moves are being initiated by IRDA in the wake of the increasing unsettled amounts lying with the insurance company. Delay in settlement of claims, lack of awareness and change in address on part of dependants have pushed up the amount of unclaimed money to Rs. 4,866crore in 2012-13 from Rs. 1,373crore in 2009-10. Starting from January 2015, the insurer will have to file details of the action taken and status of the unclaimed amount to the regulator.

Hopefully these steps taken by IRDA will allow policyholders to benefit from the  insurance policies they have taken and have claimed under it.