All started in year 2022, Being a common man and NRI, I decided to go for a term insurance. So I end up submitting an application on the web channel(https://tataaia.com/). Online sales person called me regularly to get the new customer. Within 2 calls I paid up the amount using Wire transfer, After that he told me I need to do medical checkup on my own. If I am outside of India, I need to pay for the same as well. TataAIA will reimburse that amount. I realized it would be very costly to do a medical exam outside of India(cost is in more than lack in INR). So I end up canceling my application and policy within 2 days. As I thought it will be hard to get the reimbursement back to me.
Now started real struggle for me. They asked me to share the NEFT documents on their email customercare@tataaia.com. I shared all the documents. Beware guys here you are falling in big trap, I guess this will happen with any banking or financial product. You are sharing all your bank details to a stranger over the email. At this point we are more prone to Identity theft, because you shared all your details with the stranger, anyone can look it up. Possible hack in system.
Now lets talk about response over the email they have standard template that they would respond in 3 days. So Basically you end up messing your schedule. I would not talk more about this as someone already mentioned in his review how 3 days becomes 5-7 days. (Link https://mouthshut.com/review/TATA-AIA-Life-Insurance-review-lqnnontsplp) Even if you get a response from them you will not know what is exact issue.
In my case, they need my foreign bank account details wire transfer receipt etc. Wire transfer receipt is ok, but unless you don’t give your foreign bank details you are in trouble. After sending foreign bank details. They agreed that they received premium amount. It took 45 days including countless emails and IVR calls for them to agree that they received the premium payment. This is huge metal stress.
At his point in time.
1) All your details with the stranger. Adhar Card /Pan Card / Bank details(Indian and foreign both)
2) Your premium is also within another account opened by TATAAIA and operated by them.
In my case, Once they agreed they got a premium amount from me they are asked me to update NEFT Event though, NEFT documents shared many times. It never got updated. So if we call IVR some associates will tell that NEFT is updated some will say it is not updated. So we can not get real information or actual problem statement from them. At this point in time they had marked my premium amount is released with cheque. As I never got refund amount. Here comes the main struggle, As per their record premium amount is already released without having my NEFT details, they marked it in the system against my policy. Now Imagine we are in endless loop trying to change status in TATAAIA systems.
What will we do if similar things happen at the time of Maturity or at the time of some unforeseen instances?
My views with insurance, there are many youtubers who preach about term insurance/ any type of insurance. I really have doubt about that.
As per my experience. TATAAIA is divided in 2 parts
1) Online sales channel: They will forget about you once you pay the money. Possibly they will ask to fill in wrong information in application Just to process the application. You will end up getting policy, you may end up getting benefits but the next struggle is huge.
2) customercare@tataaia.com: This may have two teams, one is actual customer care another is real operation teams that is what IVR guys keep on saying. If you send a query on the email you will not have proper information what is actual problems. They will create a service request for operation team only if you are lucky. So imagine you or your family are in endless loop between operation team and customer support team.
Now let’s talk about their website.
They have good advertisement on there website. They are claiming 98.53 claim settlement ratio.
Where are the actual numbers?
What is with the remaining 1.47% policy holder?
What about amount settled in claims?
At last, I am not here to say don’t buy policies or any banking product/finance product which are created to con a common man. As a common man I am here to say, Do your study before committing on any stuff/product. Who knows we want to secure the future of family. But we are selling information and families future in Dark web and Black market.
Who knows we want peace of mind for ourselves and our family but you end up losing it and end up getting stress-related diseases.
After 55 days of struggle, I got my money back.