What to do if the policy is sold with the wrong promise?

After receiving the policy document, it’s always recommended to read the policy document since you have entered a long-term commitment with your insurance company. While your insurance company has agreed to protect you from the risk for which you have taken the cover, there is binding on you as well to pay the premiums for the contract to be valid at both ends

You can start reading with the schedule page of the policy document where you will get all the information about the Sum Assured, the premium payment term, maturity date, nominee, maturity date, money backs, etc.

 There is also an illustration page where the company tells you about the possible returns to expect from the policy. In case you have questions and feel that the agent is misguiding you, you can call the customer care number of the insurer and they will help you with a clear understanding of the policy. 

You have a 15 day free look period where you can read the policy, ask questions and if you still feel that the policy does not meet your requirement, then you can cancel the contract and demand a refund of the premium paid. As per the IRDAI regulation, the company is liable to refund the money if applied within 15 days of the delivery of the policy document physically or by mail.

Please note that a Life Insurance policy is taken to protect the risk of dying too soon or living too long. The returns on the insurance policy are comparatively low as a part of the premium is deducted toward the insurance being provided to you (Mortality Charges), expenses, and also the agent commission. If an agent has committed very high returns, please recheck!! 

So, if someone sells you insurance basis higher returns, free gold coin, free health insurance, the promise of loan, the promise of installation of tower, higher bonuses and many other kinds of offers which seems to be too good to be true! Caution!!

Please call the customer care of the insurance company and seek clarification. Most of the time we know that this cannot be true but still get trapped by the callers.

Never ignore the verification call that you receive from the Insurance company. They do explain the product again to you and also check the possibility of any misselling by asking you questions about loans, bonuses, gold coins, etc. Generally, in cases of misselling, the customers are in the trap of the telecaller who misguides and the customer ignores the warning signs in the verification call.

In case you have experienced any kind of misselling or fraud, you can reach out for help in the following order

1. Customer care of the Insurance company- You can call or write to them
2. IRDAI- You can call and write to them
3. Ombudsman- You can submit your compliant in writing to them. There is also an online provision to file the complaint
4. Consumer Court- You can file your complaint directly or through your lawyer.

All these are grievance handling mechanism available to you which you can use based on your experience.