I recently booked flight tickets through Makemytrip.com website. During the process of booking tickets, the site also offered "what seemed to be a very attractive" Domestic Travel Insurance Policy from Apollo DKV Insurance Company. Like any family man who is worried about the safety of his family during travel, I thought buying a travel insurance policy would be a wise option. The insurance features shown on Makemytrip website seemed very attractive and the premium was also very attractive.
As soon as I finished booking my tickets(and before Makemytrip delivered my e-tickets to my inbox) I received the pdf copies of insurance policies. I was really happy that finally there is an "Insurance Company that is not taking customers for a ride". I decided to check the full set of terms and conditions of the policy available at the website.
As I read the terms and conditions of Domestic Travel Insurance Policy, my heart sank. I felt whatever little premium I have paid for the policies have all gone waste. During ticket booking, Makemytrip website shows you so many lucrative features and benefit claim amounts, including claims for lost baggage and flight delays. However, when you read the actual terms and conditions of the policy, you realize that there is no way an Ordinary Indian Citizen can claim any of those benefits.
The policy seems to have been written solely with a purpose to discourage anyone from making a claim! There are so many conditions and legal words that you will wonder if Apollo DKV will ever pay you even a single penny should anything happen to you.
Flight Delay clause is not what it seems to be. They say that they will compensate for food and stay expenses upon written confirmation from airlines that the delay was not caused due to one of the several reasons(if you read the policy, you will die laughing because they have literally put all possible causes of delay to avoid paying any money to the insured). So, what exactly is covered under Delay? Nothing Really.
Don’t expect any benefits under other heads too. Everything requires so many procedures and documentary confirmation that a person will think it is better to forego the claim rather than waste a good part of his/her life in settling a claim.
So, is Apollo DKV an exception? Not Really. With the arrival of so many insurance companies in the Indian market, the choice is there but the safety and security is still not there. As long as Insurance Companies hire best of lawyers and Risk Managers to write the insurance policies, it is same story for buyers across all these companies. Too much of legal and technical lingo, too many terms and conditions, finally leading to exceptional profits for insurance companies but nothing for the insured.