India’s Motor Insurance Industry

India’s motor insurance industry provides mandatory motor vehicle covers for all vehicle owners.

This industry also falls under the umbrella general insurance sector where home; health and travel insurance covers fall.

The Extent Of The Cover
This cover caters for risks related to the driver, the passenger and any third party involved at the time of loss.

Typical risks include both natural and man-made risks. Natural risks are in the form of fire, explosions, and self-ignition. Man-made risks on the other hand relate to theft and burglary etc.

The personal accident policy is a compulsory policy. It caters for the individual and his/her passengers. The third party legal liability caters for claims for other parties due to the loss caused by the driver’s actions.

Nature Of The Cover
This type of cover is on the insured declared value. This is a fixed value at which the client insures his motor vehicle. According to ICICI, this insured declared value is calculated based on the listing selling price as provided by the manufacturer.

Players In The Industry
The industry is full of players that have met the industry standards while others have fallen short of them. At one time I came across a blogger’s work lamenting about the customer care and the whole claim process, making observations that serious loopholes do exist in this industry.

In his writing, he quoted two prominent service providers that charge premiums for the same policy but the difference between the two premiums was too big. The customer care was also poor, wasting a lot of time on the phone waiting for the call to be transferred to the right customer care representative and finally being asked to call after a day or two.

The online claim forms also placed on the providers’ websites kept on returning error messages. This was just one of the persons who have had a nasty experience in this industry. But judging from the comments his observations generated, one can tell he is not alone.

Lack of background checks by clients on their potential service providers
Majority of clients do not put in the time required to explore the various providers’ products in the market before settling for one. This is as noted earlier due to the mandatory nature of the cover.

Finally, this industry is that a general observation has been made about the loss making nature of this industry. This is due to the challenges being faced as hinted on the preceding discussion.