I read all the 21 reviews on LIC and I too trust LIC as most people do. Their slogan which appears on all advertisements is a nice one. It appeals to the mind and passes on the message in an efficient manner. I wanted to take a policy but couldnt decide which one to take and from whom. I had 2 policies of LIC, one of which was taken by my dad when I was in school and the other one taken three years ago when I got my first months salary. That policy too was taken as my friends were keen that all of us insure at the same time and have the same policy.
I didnt take this insurance issue very seriously till the last year July 26th incident when I was really shaken up and realised that I need to buy more insurance. This time I wasnt able to decide whether to buy a policy from LIC or ICICI as I have a salary account with ICICI. ICICI has got a very aggressive image and I feel it has young talent, though ICICI goes overboard with the annoying sales executives calling up to sell insurance policies, they literally beg ! Sometimes I get a feeling that they are making use of wrong methods of trying to get a customer. Imagine some stupid executive calling when u are in the midst of a meeting or at odd hours and starts with a blah, blah, blah. Isnt it stupid ? But yet I feel that ICICI can offer much more convinience to the policyholder. As far as LIC is concerned I dont know where their offices are located in the suburbs. In the Flora-fountain area where I work every second building is owned by LIC and even my own office is located in a building owned by LIC. LIC has 5 to 6 branches in one single building in the Flora fountain and VT area. Poor planning, I mean whats the point of having dozens of offices in the same locatily. Instead just relocate to places where the policyholder will be able to visit easily. In the suburbs, I just remember going to a small dingy office somewhere in Goregaon to pay my premium as my agent couldnt come to my officetp collect it. This year again the bomb blast incident forced me to think of increasing my insurance. I was about to call ICICI for insurance when I realised that in one of my colleagues case, LIC immediately paid the full claim amount to his uncle who died due to the bomb blast whereas TATA-AIG is refusing to pay the full amount on some lame pretext. This issue prompted me to call up my LIC agent once again and this time I took a 6 lacs money-back policy. I feel LIC is the safest bet, they live upto our expectation whenever disaster strikes. As far as private companies are concerned, they do their best to attract a customer, they pamper the customers but you can’t really trust them as they have many terms and conditions written in fine print which a layman cant understand. So theres no guarantee that these MNC’s will pay the claim. This fear affected my decision of taking an insurance policy . But I plan to take a small ICICI policy sometime in future just to satisfy my desire to have an insurance policy with them but for now I feel LIC is the safest bet and wouldnt like to gamble with my hard earned money at the moment. But as I read in all other reviews, even I feel that LIC should have more qualified and well behaved employees interacting with policyholders. LIC should be more IT savvy and more service oriented. The office employees should be punished for giving sloppy after sales service to its policyholders. They take several weeks to start a lapsed policy. They should be able to satisfy a policyholders ego just as ICICI does, afterall everyone wants to feel special.