According to IRDAI data, an amount of as much as Rs. 15,167 crore of policyholders is lying unclaimed with 23 life insurers. Insurers have already been instructed to take necessary steps so as to identify the policyholders or beneficiaries and disburse the claims, as part of insurance fraud settlement solutions.
When it comes to insurance claim settlement solutions, board level committee for policyholder protection of every insurer is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring the timely payout of all the dues to policyholders. It also meticulously monitors the steps adopted by the insurers to bring down the unclaimed amounts as part of the standard procedures on customer service. Out of the total unclaimed amount of Rs. 15,166.47 crore, as on March 31, 2018, insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) is sitting on Rs. 10,509 crore. On the other hand, the 22 private sector insurers account for the remaining Rs. 4657.45 crore.
Among the private insurers, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co has 807.4 crore of unclaimed insurance claims followed by Reliance Nippon Life Insurance (Rs. 696.12 crore), SBI Life Insurance Co (678.59 crore), and HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co (Rs. 659.3 crore).
The insurance companies were asked by The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to offer a search facility on their website. The purpose of this facility would be to enable policyholders or beneficiaries or dependents to find out whether any unclaimed amounts are lying with these companies due to them. This move is expected to lessen insurance claim grievance significantly.
All that policyholders/beneficiaries need to do is enter the details like policy number, PAN of the policyholder, name of the policyholder, date of birth or Aadhar number, in a window provided on the website of the insurer to find out the unclaimed amount.
The insurers are required to update information regarding unclaimed amounts on their websites on a half-yearly basis.
