I’m the sort of person who doesn’t know what I’m doing in 10 minutes, never mind planning for my life! So when it was suggested that I get a life insurance policy, all the usual jargon was thrown in, including high interest rates, tax benefits, blah blah.... I agreed more to shut the sales executive up and save myself a headache than anything.
And so it went... Every 3 months I had to cough up around 12 grand, but aside from that they left me alone and my life went on pretty much as normal. Until the fateful day that I happened to be late with a payment and they lapsed my policy. I was called to their office and asked to pay the premium along with a fee to revive my policy and sign a few forms. A mere formality right? WRONG!!! I heard nothing further from them for a while. In fact they continued to take my money... Then I get a letter saying that my policy is still lapsed because my signature on the form did not match the signature in their files. So I filled out another form to verify my signature. And another... And another.... And another...
My insurance policy is still lapsed. And according to Kotak I’m not who I say I am because my signature doesn’t match. I can’t cancel the policy because it is lapsed. I can’t revive the policy because their computer can’t read my signature. Not that they complained about the signature on my cheques mind you... So in a nutshell, I’m out by around a lakh, which is a lot of money to some of us, and there’s nothing I can do about it because the company consistently refuses to acknowledge me for who I am. On a brighter note, I’m still alive.... Just imagine the hell my family would have to go through if I popped it and they actually had to go make a claim...
So if anyone from Kotak is reading this, my policy number is 00073207 and my customer ID no. is N0117781. I’ve received a lot of sympathy and bad coffee from my repeated visits to the Kotak office in Rajajinagar, but frankly I’d rather have my money back!