What is the First Step for Claiming a Term Plan?

This is what the term plan is meant for. The purpose of buying term life insurance is to secure the future of your loved ones financially in case of your untimely death. An apt term insurance plan ensures financial stability to your family members in a tough time when you can’t give them anymore. The sum assured is paid by the insurer to the nominee as a death benefit in any eventuality.

However, more often than not, the nominees of the insured may not completely aware of the process of making a claim settlement on term life insurance policy which can further increase the distress of those people who are mourning the loss. Well, the beneficiary/nominee appointed by the insured is entitled to attain the sum assured under the term plan. However, if the nominee is not aware of the claim settlement process, they might not be able to avail of the benefit of a term insurance plan. This is why it is very imperative that all the nominees must be aware of the claim process in detail so that they can make the most of it in times of emergency.

Steps for Claiming a Term Insurance Policy

Well, the claim settlement process will mostly be the same for the majority of the insurance companies, barring some minor changes. To ensure that you waste no time in filing a death claim, it is vital to know the claim process. Given below are the basic steps that you need to follow while filing a death claim:

Step 1: Inform the Insurer

Once the insured passes away, the nominee under the term plan must get in touch with the insurance company as soon as possible and inform the insurer about the policyholder’s demise. Although your family must be going through the emotional trauma during this time, you must not delay in filing a claim in order to avoid any sort of complication in the claim process.

Well, this is the first step in the process of claim settlement following which the claimant must register a claim either by sending an email to the registered email address provided for this purpose or by calling the insurance company’s helpline number.

Step 2: Documents Submission

The next step of claim settlement process includes the submission of the documents that are required by the insurance company for claim settlement. So, submit all the required documents inclusive of death certificate and the insurance policy documents to the insurance provider to process your claim further. In majority of the cases, the insurance provider settles the claim within one week of receiving the documents.

If in case the insured has died in an accident, the beneficiary(s) will also be required to submit a copy of the FIR filed by the police as well as the report of the post morterm  examination. And if in case the policyholder has died due to illness, then the nominee(s) would need to submit the death certificate along with the treatment records from the hospital in which the policyholder was treated & cause of death.

After the insurance provider has got the requested documents, their claim settlement team will start assessing the claim. In addition to this, they will verify the details provided by the nominee(s), supporting documents, and the beneficiary’s declaration. In a few cases, the beneficiary may be asked to submit additional documents to support the claim further.

Step 3: Claim Processing

Once the claim settlement team has assessed the claim and documents that are submitted by the beneficiary(s), they will either approve or deny the claim. If it has been approved, the insurance company will proceed further to settle the claim. Meaning that, the sum assured will be paid by the insurer to the beneficiary(s) in the mode selected by the insured.

The Final Words

The main purpose of buying a term plan is to ensure the financial security and stability of your loved ones in an event of your untimely demise. Therefore, it is very important to choose the insurance provider that provides the best claim ratio in term insurance so that your family members or nominee(s) can avail of the benefit of term insurance policy when they will need it the most.