Junaid is a young man who comes from a humble background and is the only son of his aging parents. When he started work he wanted to purchase a health insurance plan for his parents. He decided to go for a plan with LIC since it is one of the providers that his family had used earlier also. He even got a call from a person who claimed to be an insurance agent working with LIC. He was assured by the insurance agent that this plan would be taking care of all the expenses that may occur due to his parents’ doctor visits, hospitalization, critical illness, etc. The agent then scheduled a visit and asked Junaid to transfer the premium amount through UPI so that he can get the policy initiated. He even shared the policy document by the end of that week. A month later he took his parents for a regular checkup and decided to use the insurance policy to avail of cashless OPD consultation as he was promised. He was shocked, being informed by the hospital that his policy is not valid. When he contacted the LIC office he was subsequently informed that no agent is matching the IRDAI registration number that was mentioned by the person. The policy documents were also forged and there was no policy issued for Junaid.
Nevertheless, in the past, there have been cases of LIC scams, and policyholders who put their money in a trusted company lost a good amount. This is why LIC even issued a notification in which the company shared some dos and don’ts.
Top 7 Tips to avoid LIC Insurance frauds in India
Here are some tips for you to follow if you want to avoid a LIC fraud case as mentioned below:-
- If you are paying the premium for your policy through cheque, you need to ensure of mentioning the name of the Life Insurance Corporation of India. If you are being asked to issue the cheque in someone else’s name, you should not only refuse to do it but also inform the insurance company about it.
- As a policyholder of LIC, you must check the status of your policy on the official website of the company. You must keep a tab if there has been any update about your policy.
- No matter what, you must not sign any document that you have received from the agent, without reading it thoroughly. You must not involve in this extremely important step in haste. You should rather take some time to go through each of the terms and conditions of your policy or any other related document. This is a vital step to avoid any problems in the future.
- You must not give the original documents of your policy to anyone. You need to remember that LIC will never give authority to any individual to collect original policy papers from any of their policyholders.
- If you get an offer on phone, do not be sure that it is an actual agent of LIC who has called you; it can be a fraudster too. Before buying a policy from the individual or making payment for a policy, you need to ensure that the person is a LIC agent. And to do so, you can cross-check the details provided by him about himself with the LIC customer service.
- Whether it is an outstanding installment or bonus, you will never be contacted by LIC over the phone. You can consider such calls as spam calls and immediately disconnect them.
- To make payments for the premiums for your LIC policy, you should always choose NEFT as the mode. This mode of payment is the safest and there is no chance that someone can cheat you.
If you want to make a LIC frauds complaint, you can get in touch with the insurance company. LIC appealed to all their policyholders, under their Anti-Fraud policy, to let them know about any such case. You must exercise caution when taking a policy from LIC or any other insurance provider and follow the steps as directed by the IRDAI.
You can also visit Insurance Samadhaan to educate yourself more on insurance fraud and what should precaution to take while buying insurance.
