To: Harshal Shah
Cc: Grievance Manager; complaints@irda.gov.in Rajiv Jamkhedkar; Yateesh Srivastava
Subject: RE: Policy # 510031122605 - Renewal Premium IRDA grievance application No: 03-12-004529
Dear Harshal Shah, Thanks for your following mail dated March 15th with a cc to Mr. Yateesh Srivastava. Appreciate a lot. The following is the summary of our discussions yesterday March 15th:
1) You indicated that you are the senior most person in Aegon Religare next only to the CEO and have full powers do whatever is required to address the concerns of the existing customtakeouters acquired through e-channel
2) At the outset you apologized for the following
a. Rude behavior of your call center employees
b. Rude mails from Priyanka to the customtakeouters
c. For unilaterally going ahead and altering around 25, 000(Approx) existing term policy customtakeouters contracts without obtaining the customtakeouters consent and enhancing the sum assured, in lieu of the new iTerm plan rates approved by IRDA for AegonReligare during 2011-12, instead of refunding the premium
Back-ground
3) You also indicated that I took the term policy with AegonReligare with old plan terms and conditions. Subsequent to the same AegonReligare modified its existing term plan to make it more competitive, increased the scope of coverage, term policy validity period and also proposed to give some flexibility to customtakeouters through the Riders option. AegonReligare obtained IRDA approval for such modified version of their iTerm plan during 2011-12. After obtaining such an approval, AegonReligare had the following options for its existing customtakeouters who are already covered in their existing term plans(Old term plans):
a. Retain them as it is in the old term plans
b. Migrate them to new term plan keep the SA and term plan duration same as per the old plan and refund the premium to the customtakeouters, in lieu of the reduced rates for its new iTerm Plan by IRDA
c. Don’t refund the premium – but migrate the existing customtakeouters to the new iTerm plan and increase the plan term(Say from 20 years to 25 years), keeping the SA same
d. Don’t refund the premium – but migrate the existing customtakeouters to the new iTerm plan and increase the Sum assured and retain the current term plan’s tenure
4) Technchandru021y speaking all the existing customtakeouters should have been intimated about this change and should have also been given an option to select the option whichever is suitable to them from the above four listed options
5) It appears that AegonReligare choose not to inform to its existing 25, 000(Approx)term policy customtakeouters about the changes which have taken place and about the possible options the customtakeouters have to migrate to new iTerm plan and voluntarily went ahead and altered their existing term policy contracts following the route ‘D’ mentioned above during 2011-12
6) You also indicated to me that this was done by AegonReligare by passing endorsements on the existing policies held by these 25, 000(Approx) term policy customtakeouters, without receiving any type of consent from those customtakeouters to alter their contracts during 2011-12
What you proposed
7) Passing one more endorsement at the time of renewal may not be possible on policy # 510031122605 to reduce the SA
8) Instead you would issue a new contract – but will not insist that I need to complete one more proposal, undergo medical check-up once again etc., etc., but would use the same proposal and medical check-up test results you already have for my original policy # 510031122605 to renew it and issue a fresh new contract in its place
9) Effectively I will have a new contract from 1st April 2012 with a different policy number(Other than policy # 510031122605)
10) This you indicated needs to be done, since your existing policy administration system will not permit you to do either of the following
a. Passing an endorsement on policy # 510031122605 at the time of renewal during 2012-13
b. Allocating the same policy # in the new iTerm plan and renewing the same during 2012-13
What I wanted
11) My term policy is already there with AegonReligare for the last two years. I do not want one more new contact at this stage to be issued when I am planning to continue to be with AegonReligare by renewing my policy during 2012-13 and for the future policy terms too
12) Since you have already migrated me to the new iTerm policy by passing an endorsement on my existing policy # 510031122605 and increased the SA to Rs1.24 crores from Rs1 crore without obtaining my consent( I believe the same is the case with 25, 000(Approx) existing term policy customtakeouters with AegonReligare) during 2011-12, at the time of renewal also, follow the same procedure as you already followed once earlier and pass one more endorsement on the existing contract issued to reduce the SA to 1 crore and also reduce the premium as per the new iTerm plan terms and conditions. You can also specify that going forward the new iTerm policy terms and conditions as specified in the endorsement are applicable to policy # 510031122605(Except for the suicide clause etc., )
13) I believe in the Insurance industry you can pass an endorsement on an existing policy to make the changes requested by the customtakeouter and agreed by an Insurer. I hope IRDA or any other regulator will not have any issues if you follow this route, since the existing contract is valid for the next 18 years
14) Retain the original proposal, contract, medical check-up results etc., and do not ask me to repeat all those once again for no fault of mine when the policy # 510031122605 is renewed during 2012-13 once again with AegonReligare without lapsing the original policy
15) Refund the excess premium collected during 2011-12 by unilaterally enhancing the SA under policy # 510031122605 to1.24 crores
Appreciate if you could confirm that the above understanding is correct and you would be in a position to renew my policy on the lines suggested in serial # 11 to 15 above at the earliest for 2012-13
Regards,
Shyam Kumar
07829902759