Hi Mahavir,
I was about to buy a policy on-line, and onone of the pages I saw this disclaimer:
"Due to recent regulatory changes on portability norms, portability benefits cannotbe provided for policies bought online due to procedural formalities. In case you wish to avail portability benefits please apply through our local office."
This is rather disappointing. I mean, we should tag this for all prospective on-line buyers. Afterall, today an insurer may have better rating and be a top-notch service provider, however in future such a status could cease to exist, that is where portability should be a useful tool for the insured.
I have a query with regards to one of your replies:
“As per the policy wordings of all Insurance products, in India, you are supposed to claim proportionately from all the policies you have, however, this is not practiced in reality. An Insurer can insist on proportionate claims.”
Why do we have such a rule? I mean it is rather skewed towards the insurer. My point is apart from the limit factor which is not there for some of the policies, I would rather look it this way:
1. Usually, whenever there is a claim insurer tend to bump-up the premium sooner or later. I wouldn’t want that to happen to both of policies(say I have 2 policies). I would rather keep one claim free.
2. If premium becomes disproportionately higher, portability will be of little use to me at that point in time. I could very well discard this policy and continue with the claim free one. With this rule (which you have quoted) in place I will not be able to do that. Also, buying a policy at that point in time would mean go through a lot (if I had one policy only).
3. I can best of both world. Basically, I might like some features of one policy and some of the other.
4. Buying one single large SI is rather cumbersome to buy and maintain. I have my doubt on portability itself in long run, I think insurer in general would rather be reluctant.
Cheers,
Jaideep