Insurance firm asked to pay Rs 5 lakh

Manmeet Singh Gill

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Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 7

The district Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed an insurance company to pay Rs 5 lakh to a local resident whose father died within eight days of obtaining the policy. The company had earlier repudiated the claim alleging that the policy was acquired fraudulently after the man’s death. The forum has also directed the company to pay Rs 2,000 as litigation expenses to the applicant.

A local resident, Nirmal Singh, had filed a complaint against PNB Metlife India Insurance Company stating that his father Bakshish Singh (now deceased) was insured with the company.

Nirmal stated that his father had obtained the policy on March 17, 2016, with sum assured Rs 5,00,000 by paying premium of Rs 50,000 with premium paying term of 10 years. His father died on March 25, 2016, due to a cardiac arrest. His father was not suffering from any heart disease before his death, he claimed.

Nirmal filed a claim for the insurance money but it was repudiated by the company stating that Bakshish Singh had died prior to the solicitation of the insurance policy and the policy was fraudulently and maliciously caused to be issued by unknown fraudsters.

The insuranse company, in its reply, submitted that the policy was issued on March 17, 2016, but the deceased had died on March 15, 2016, prior to the issuance of the policy.

It stated that the company received the death claim from the complainant on April 11, 2016, intimating them that the insured person had died on March 25, 2016.

The company stated that as the insured had died within eight days of obtaining the policy, they carried out an investigation in which it was revealed that the death certificate submitted by the complainant was forged.

The forum observed that the complainant had submitted a death certificate issued by the Registrar, Birth and Death Registration, and affidavits of many panchayat members to establish that his father had died on March 25, 2016. The forum stated that on the other hand, the insurane company could not produce any piece of evidence. The convincing evidence by the complainant proved the fact of the date of death of insured Bakshish Singh.

The forum stated that simply saying that some fraud or manipulation had been pressed into service for getting the claim cannot be a ground to dislodge the genuine claim of the complainant.