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Congratulations, You made the right decision to buy insurance. Now for the hard part.

Buying insurance is not an easy, straightforward process, Irrespective of the type of insurance. Be it health or life insurance or any other type of insurance, today, there are multiple insurers to chose from and also multiple choices of products available. Even this is just one side of the story. There are other things critical before and during the insurance buying process. In this piece, we will deep dive into this process and explore some important elements of insurance buying.

For the sake of convenience, let us break up the insurance buying process into the following 4 steps.

1. Need Assessment

2. Product Selection

3. Application Process /Proposal

4. Post Purchase

Let us now explore these points in detail.

1. Need Assessment:

The starting point for any insurance purchase is obviously deciding what type of insurance is needed. A comprehensive need assessment to holistically assess your insurance needs should be done regularly, perhaps once every couple of years at least. Need assessment would mostly cover personal risk areas and related solutions like health, life, personal accident and critical illness insurance. Beyond this, covers like motor, home, fire & marine, shopkeepers insurance, professional liability /indemnity, etc, and even Covid-19 related policies may be explored on a case of case basis. For this article, we will limit our scope to the personal insurance covers only.

Buying any personal insurance product depends on a lot of factors like your age, your life stage, number of dependents, existing covers, etc. After a product is decided, the next important question is how much cover you should have and the term of the cover? This again will depend on your earnings, lifestyle, the number of dependents, probability of risk, metro/non-metro city, etc. Needless to say, the higher cover taken at an early age, where medical issues are yet to arise, is highly recommended.

2. Product Selection

With multiple insurers and products, all with different features again is not easy. The right product selection is very crucial, and you will need to go into details to clearly understand the product features and even policy wordings. One important element here is to ensure that the premium fits in your pocket for the required cover. So an optimal balance may be required here. Another choice here is that of riders. Obviously, riders do offer some advantages but may not be always preferred and excessive riders are not required. Stand-alone products, like say critical illness, “may” offer better coverage and features rather than having them only as a rider. To sum up, with the product, the cover, premium amount, premium paying term, policy term and riders /add-ons will be decided at this stage.

3. Application Process:

The insurance buying process normally starts with the quote generation by your insurance advisor which will have the short-listed products. Upon selection of the product with cover, the proposer will be guided to a proposal form. The proposal form is the most important and basic document required for the insurance contract between the policyholder and the insurance company. It includes the insured's basic information like address, age, name, education, occupation etc. It also includes the person's health status and medical history.

The proposal form helps the insurance company to calculate all the potential risks in relation to the insurance policy and hence deciding the premium amount. Needless to say, this has to the filled in as per the principle of ‘Utmost Good Faith’, which we would like to briefly cover here. After submission of the proposal form and payment of the premium, the process will end for you except in cases where the medical test, from an emplaned doctor with the insurer, is required. After this, the proposal is received by the insurer who is free to review the details and either accept or reject the proposal. Based on the information disclosed, a ‘medical underwriting’ may also be done by the insurer.

4. Post Purchase.

After the insurer is satisfied with the details required, the policy will be issued. You are expected to keep all the policy documents safely and handy at your end. Today, insurance policies are also being saved in digital format in your E-Insurance Account, which may be applied for /disclosed during proposal form filing. It is important to check that the details of the policy, including all personal details and disclosures, is accurate to avoid any issue in future. Once you receive the policy document in hard copy, please check all the key details properly. In case of life and health/PA policies do check the medical history, occupation, etc is captured correctly as you have declared. For vehicle insurance, you must check the registration number, fuel type and claim history. In case you find any discrepancy, please contact your adviser to make the required corrections in the policies. If everything is in place, the process of insurance purchase ends here.

An important point to note here is that policyholders get a ‘free look-in period’. If for any reason you feel that the policy terms & conditions are unacceptable or there was any mistake in buying the policy, the policy may be returned. A refund will then be processed, less any expenses and proportionate risk premium for the period used.

In brief:

Identifying your insurance needs, deciding the appropriate cover and term and closing on the right, the suitable product is easier said than done. We would strongly recommend that the readers approach their insurance advisors for the right guidance. Please note that, unlike investments, buying insurance is a long-term contract that can have serious consequences when an unwelcome event happens. You may not buy another policy of similar nature for at least a few years, if not more, and thus, it becomes even more critical that the right decision is made, something you don’t regret later. To kick-start the new financial year in the right spirit, we would urge everyone to undertake a holistic need assessment with their insurance advisor. We wish you a safe, healthy and prosperous new financial year.

It was cold, windy evening of January 2012. Mr. & Mrs Arora (retired couple, both senior citizens) were enjoying winter evening & having a cup of hot coffee in their 3 BHK luxurious apartment in South Delhi when they received a phone call. Next 15 days were one of the worst period they experienced in their lives. Their son, Mr. Akash Arora in his late 20's met with a severe accident while driving a car on his way back to Delhi from Chandigarh due to intense fog. He incurred multiple fractures and was in hospital for 15 days. Fortunately he survived and recovered fully after 15 days of hospitalization, but the total medical bill made Aroras poorer by Rs.7 lakhs. Unfortunately Akash had medical cover of only Rs.3 lakhs assuming this would be sufficient for him at a young age of 27.

As Aroras belong to higher income group and have created wealth over the years, additional Rs.4 lakhs which they had to pay from their own pockets did not pinch them much but not all of us belong to that category. Can such type of incidence happen to any of us ? Are we in a position of bear cost of high hospitalization/medical bills on our own ?

You may argue that this can be an exceptional event and may not happen in everyone's life. But can we predict which family will suffer this trauma and which one will escape ? Another point worth highlighting here is lifestyle related health problems. In today's fast paced life when every one of us is a part of the 'rat race' and all of us want to win that race, we are leaving healthy living habits behind. Eating junk food, irregularity in eating habits, high pressured work culture resulting in incidences like heart attack at a young age or diabetics or blood pressure problems. These have become very common in India now.

Unfortunately in India we mostly realize importance of medical insurance only when something of this sort happen either to us or to our near & dear ones. Why to leave things to destiny when you can cover the risk through medical insurance, popularly known as mediclaim.

Understanding the Basic Traits of Health Insurance:
Health insurance is a contract between insurance company (insurer) and insuree who takes insurance coverage against any medical emergency by paying a specified price (called premium) depending on multiple factors. Health insurance is nothing but passing risk of bearing medical cost to insurance company against the premium paid.

So medical insurance is nothing but passing risk/cost of medical treatment to insurance company by paying premium. So in event of any medical treatment, your insurance company will pay you to the extent of insurance cover against the premium paid by you.

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We believe in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the old Sanskrit phrase meaning the world is one family. The technological advancements of the 21st century have truly made this true. We are living in a very interconnected world. Every place and every person is today well connected to each other, digitally and even physically with linkages to the remotest places on the earth. All this time we enjoyed this connectivity, accessibility, the interdependency of business and all the comforts of the modern world. However, we are now shocked and quick to realise the perishability of this new world.

The past decade has seen nature responding back to the unadulterated infiltration on it. We have seen the impacts of climate change manifest itself in many forms. Millions are being already impacted and signs are there that things will only worsen in the coming decades. Just in the past few months, we have seen earthquakes, cyclones, deadly fires and of course the world-changing pandemic. Needless to say, Covid-19 is a game-changer for everyone. It will change how we work, socialise and perhaps also respect nature. One industry has been at the forefront at helping people manage the risk emanating from uncertainty and it is insurance. While there are many forms of insurance which help different stakeholders to manage risks, we limit our focus to only personal insurance in our discussion.

At a personal level, we are concerned only with the direct risks faced by us. Covid-19 has surely made people realise the importance of having adequate health insurance. However, health is just one part of our vulnerability as humans. Let us first fully understand these vulnerabilities or risks of our lives in the form of 3 deadly Ds.

• Death

• Disease

• Disability

The above 3 D’s are pretty obvious and any common person can imagine the impact of any one of them happening on our lives. Death, especially of any earning member in a family is disastrous in all manners, financially the most. 'Disease' is something which has perhaps become very common today given the lifestyle and food habits we are following today. And without adequate support from the government to the middle and the aspirational class of the population, getting quality treatment is getting damn expensive. But what if you survive any unfortunate incident but … Disability has huge ramifications on our lives which many of us haven’t visualised. It may severely hamper our earning ability for life and add to ongoing medical costs. Have we accounted for them?

To this shortlist, we can do well to further add another two Ds – Damages and Dependency. Damages would mean damages/losses to movable or immovable properties or assets. This can be your home, shop, factory, godowns, vehicle, crops, cattle and so on. Again very self-explanatory. They are prone to human acts, accidents and also acts of the ‘god’ or natural calamities, which are getting a bit common now.

Dependency is a new word for many but perhaps the only one on the list which is almost certain and very worrying. Dependency comes from the risk of being alone and/or from longevity or living longer. It is something which we cannot really buy an ‘insurance’ against. The idea of being dependent on others for care and treatment and even for living our daily lives may be frightening for many of us today. The dynamics of the modern world and how a modern nuclear family chooses to live, in contrast to our previous generation, is something we will have to think about. Now imagine doing so without adequate resources or wealth at your disposal. That puts us in a precarious position. Perhaps the Covid-19 may have a positive impact on the same. If earning opportunities are available closer to home, many immigrants would prefer to work from home or closer to home. We will have to wait and see. But the safest way out of it to create a sizable, retirement corpus. That would be also enough for the rest of your life at a retirement home of your choice if needed.

So where are we today? We have only made ourselves more vulnerable in this modern world. We haven’t evolved as humans. All our technological advancements in all fields lay worthless as an unknown enemy made the most evolved and most powerful species, us, realise our weakness and vulnerability. It is not the end of the world though, and we will survive and we will again prosper. However, things will not be the same again. What we need to do is to do a recheck and value the most important thing in our lives - our health, both physical and mental. We need to take care of it. Financial protection in the form of insurance is no longer in a debate. Having adequate life, health, personal accident and critical illness insurance should be your next ‘To Do’ task. There are enough digital ways of buying the same at the comfort of your home. Just call your insurance advisor for a comprehensive review of your insurance portfolio. It's high time you do it.

To most of us, food, clothing, and shelter were the norms for survival. Then came technology and connectivity in the form of mobile phones. These are now indicators of our survival and safety. However, in addition to the real, touch, and feel type of safety indicators, we need the security of health, both physical and financial type. While physical health can be a subjective discussion as to the right food, adequate exercise, and healthy lifestyles, financial health is rather easy to discuss.

We save to invest for our future goals in various instruments according to the asset allocation as advised, which gives us financial security. However, mere investing will not suffice. Protecting the investment is equally important. We need to also protect our finances and future goals from unexpected expenses.

While certain expenses can be avoided, reduced, or delayed, expenses like sudden hospitalization due to injury or sickness can’t be. On top of that, these expenses are sudden, painful, and unavoidable. Accidental injuries can happen anywhere, anytime to anyone, and now the health dangers have also started to behave similarly. The current situation prevailing in the entire world for the last few months has intensified this second probability stronger than the first. Almost anyone can get infected and if not diagnosed soon, will have to get treated in a hospital. These expenses rapidly start our eroding bank balance, investments, and sometimes even credit scores. Luckily, we have the option to opt for health insurance to take care of such situations.

What do most people understand health insurance as? A common misnomer is to pay INR 15,000 to 25,000 to some insurance companies for the insurance to avail the tax benefit. Usually, in this amount, a family of 4 may get a health cover for approximately INR 300,000 to 500,000. Unfortunately, such cover is not sufficient in today's time. A hospitalization for major surgery will cost much more than this amount. In fact, the treatment of COVID for a week will cost you more than a few lakh rupees.

Therefore, taking health insurance for the nominal amount or merely for tax benefit will not help much. Since the hospital bills are steep, non-negotiable, and can not be delayed, borrowing and withdrawing from investments are the immediate consequences. A rather serious long term impact has forced a compromise on financial goals, particularly child's education and marriage or even our retirement goals. Such goals need long term planning with total discipline, as they are also non-delayable and not negotiable.

Moreover, the financial pain doesn’t stop on the day of discharge. In case of an accident injury, even after discharge from the hospital, a few weeks or months of inactivity will stop the income during that period, while the expenses would keep on mounting. Only accident insurance with loss of income feature can come to the rescue. Add accident insurance with loss of income feature, at least for the earning member of the family.

Regular evaluating and upgrading of insurance every few years is highly advisable. We keep on upgrading our lifestyle right? We upgrade our phones, laptops, curtains, bikes, and cars every few years in the name of a better life. Time has come to upgrade our health insurance for a better financial life. The importance of health & Accident insurance can be at best explained as ‘Food, clothing, shelter, mobile phone, and insurance are the basic requirements of life’.

It has been universally believed that life is, now, going to be completely changed and taking new forms of living it in a different way. Perceptions and mindset of people have changed drastically to develop more practical approaches towards life. Health insurance has now become a primary requirement with the phenomenal increase in deadly disease and advanced medical procedure.

Till now, we have been depending either on the Government or on friends and relatives for our medical emergencies. But we have witnessed a number of cases wherein friends and relatives avoid visiting the hospital to see the patient under the threat of being asked for financial help. “ Sukh ke sab sathi, dukh mein na koi”

The time has come to retrospect and reallocate our resources as per the basic theory of need hierarchy. We have been wasting lots of resources on unnecessary elements but ignoring the basic requirements like health insurance. If we feel that health insurance premium is very hefty and disturbing our budget, then we must try the illness.

Health Insurance today comes with various add on features and depending upon the budget of the customer or his lifestyle, various options are available. There are 24 Non-Life Insurance Companies and 7 stand-alone health insurance companies in India who offer health plans. Choices are many, features are many but important is to buy before any eventuality comes your way.