Insurance is a cover used for protecting oneself from the risk of a financial loss. It is important to understand that risk is a part of any person’s life and that it increases as a person increases in age, responsibility and wealth. Insurance is risk coverage against financial losses and should not be taken as an investment instrument.
There are mainly two parties involved in this – the insurer and the insured. The insurer is the insurance company who will provide the cover to the insured against any financial losses. The insured may be an individual person or a group of people like an employer, members of a society, etc.
A policy is the contract between the insurer and the insured, which states the risks covered, the exclusions, if any, and the benefits reimbursed on the happening of an event like death, illness etc. The policy is paid through what is called a premium, which is a set amount that must be paid by the insured on a monthly, semi-annual or annual basis. On the happening of an event like death, disability, fire, etc, for which the insured is covered, the benefit amount stated in the policy contract can be claimed by the insured.
Classification of Insurance
There are mainly two broad classes of Insurance – Life and Non Life.
Life insurance products include Term Life policies, which give a pure risk coverage of only the death benefit, whereas endowment or money back policies have a risk as well as savings component i.e. death as well as maturity benefit. Also coming under the life insurance umbrella are the Unit – Linked Policies in which there is a risk component and a savings component, which is invested in equity, debt or gilt funds, depending on the insurance company.
Non Life insurance products include property or casualty, health insurance or house, fire, marine insurance etc. This insurance class deals with all the non-life aspects of an insured like his/her house, health, land, office, cargo, etc which might bring financial loss.
Life Insurance Process Flow
The simplest life insurance business cycle looks like this:
The client approaches the insurer through an agent with a proposal containing his personal details, income details, medical history, products ( the product describes the features provided by the insurer like maturity bonus, claims allowed etc. These features vary from product to product), sum assured (the amount for which the client is covered), term (number of years for which the client is to be covered) and premium amount (installment amount to be paid by the client to the insurer). The agent who brings this proposal is termed as a base/servicing agent for the proposal.
The proposal will go through various stages of approval and risk evaluation by the “Central Processing Centre” of the Insurance Company. Upon final approval, a legal agreement, termed as policy, between the insurer and the client is prepared whereby the insurer covers the client for the sum assured. The client is also entitled for some additional benefits, if any, depending on the features of the product taken in the policy. The base agent gets a commission for the policy.
The client pays a premium at regular intervals. These subsequent premiums are termed as renewal premiums. The base agent gets a commission on the renewal premium also.
The client may come back with some alterations to the policy viz. increase/decrease in sum assured, increase/decrease of the term of policy etc. The insurer will make the relevant changes to the policy and will issue endorsements stating the alterations made and their effect on the policy.
During the term of the policy, the client can submit claims. The insurer makes payment against the claim after verification. Depending on the type of claim the policy is either terminated or is kept in force.
At the end of the term of the policy, the client gets the sum assured as part of the maturity benefit under life insurance policies. In addition to this the client will get the maturity bonus and any other benefits depending on the product feature.
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