There can be enormous difference in the insurer-authorized service centre estimation as compared to the roadside repair shops. Is itjustified? Are insurance companies being fleeced which means you end-up with higher premium?

Imagine an ICICI Lombard-authorized service centre giving quote of Rs44,390 for labour and parts when you could have roadside shop fix your Honda City for only Rs5,000. It happened for one customer and hence it leads to the question whether insurance companies are ripped off by service centres they have tied up with? If so, are you paying extra premium to compensate for the profits made by the service centres? We know of some hospitals overcharging when you declare that you have a health insurance policy. If your car needs treatment, why should you expect authorized service centres behave anything different than hospitals?

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IRDA has penalised Birla Sun Life Insurance Company a paltry Rs6 lakh for a slew of violations, some serious including using unlicensed entities to sell insurance

The Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) had detected 22 irregularities in the functioning of Birla Sun Life Insurance Company (BSLI) but penalised it a paltry Rs6 lakh for two of the violations. What is most pertinent is that it took the regulator around a year and a half, from the date of its first inspection letter (22 November 2010), to pass the judgement (13 April 2012).

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The district forum also asked Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance to pay Rs1 lakh as compensation to its customer, a retired Army officer for selling a wrong insurance-linked saving policy by signing the proposal form

New Delhi: The Delhi Police has been ordered by a district consumer forum to lodge a cheating case against Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Ltd (Kotak) and its agent for selling a customer a wrong insurance-linked saving policy by signing the proposal form in his name, reports PTI.

The New Delhi District Forum also directed Kotak Mahindra to pay Rs1 lakh as compensation to its customer, a retired Army officer for rendering deficient service to him and for allegedly “committing fraud and cheating” upon him. It also asked the insurance firm to return him “entire premium or other sum received” from him.

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How you can get ripped off by the staff of insurance company themselves!

Many implicitly trust insurance companies. We present you the chilling story of what can happen when a gullible customer walks into an insurance office

Arvind Injamuri, 65, a 9th std fail, retired railway employee living at Solapur, decided to use his retirement kitty to secure his complicated family’s future. This financial kitty included some money from sale of land as well. His understanding of insurance was probably shaped by the advertisements on television and he thought it was simple enough to walk into an insurance company’s office to buy the right policies. He has some vague idea about tax savings, but is so financially illiterate that he refers to all insurance policies as LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India) policies.

The first thing that strikes you about Mr Injamuri is his lack of sophistication. He is the kind of customer that fancy private banks don’t even want in their lobbies and his knowledge of English doesn’t go beyond the most basic. But he had over Rs17 lakh in his bank accountand was looking for financial products to shop!

Click Here for the full story by Sucheta Dalal & Raj Pradhan