I applied for an insurance policy for my Car (Car is in my mother's name), on 28/07/08, issuing a cheque for the amount requested by the company's agent against the cover note no. 10487558. Post this transaction no one reverted to me, neither the agent (which is usual) nor Tata AIG, the insurer.
I checked my account after a week & was confirmed that the check had been cleared.
As is the practice in good faith I trusted Tata AIG & went about my business as usual on the basis of the cover note with the fact in mind, that the payment had been made so my vehicle is insured.
The policy was due for renewal on 28/07/09. I was surprised that I didn't receive any renewal notices.
I called up the insurance company 10 days before the expiry of the policy, someone answered and said the details aren't accessible should call again later.
In the meanwhile I got in touch with a friend working with another GIC to get a new policy issued, who asked for the earlier policy no. I gave him the payment details along with the cover note details & requested him to check, to my surprise he too came back with the same answer that his resources were unable to confirm the details so he couldn't issue the policy, the only options left were to follow up tata AIG on my money paid or forget the matter pay an exhorbitant amount & get a fresh cover for my car.
I decided to follow the path which felt right. So I started following up with Tata AIG.
to my surprise after a whole day of follow-ups & talking to 5 different executives I received a call from their customer services manager Mr Gaurav Mathur.
By now I had lost my cool, he tried his best to pacify me & explained that the policy was not issued since there was a shortfall in the amount I paid, to which my response was:
1. " Whose responsibility is it to inform the customer in case there is some issue"
2. If that was the case, Tata AIG should have rejected my insurance request & returned my cheque.
(if the the companies customer service is so bad, this action would have put things in correct perspective)
3. For the whole year I was ignorantly driving the vehicle with the comfort, that the vehicle was insured.
4. It is a capital crime (pls do correct me if I am wrong" to drive a vehicle w/o insurance cover.
5. In case an accident had occured who would have covered the damages.
6. While I spoke to the executives of the company, I realised they had no details about the vehicle owner apart from the address. (I updated them with the entire information)
In response to this all Mr. Mathur had to say was..." We are sorry"
In case an accident had taken place the company would have stepped forward, though he declined to make the same statement on record on mail, this he did after constant cajoling & repeated mails...(For which I have a a trail mail capturing the events).
# Does this action on part of Tata AIG amount to fraud? Had I not checked with them they had appropriated the money w/o issuing a policy against it.
# Two days before the expiry of the policy date as per the cover note, Mr Gaurav Mathur sent across a scanned copy of the policy as a beautiful COVER UP to the whole episode.
Is it legal/lawful to issue a back dated policy, that too a year old?
Does IRDA allow this?
My consistent request along my ordeal with Tata AIG was to verify the lapse & why it happened.
Kindly advise if the organisation as mighty as the TATA AIG can be made accountable for such deficiency in service?
Regards
Rahul Fotedar
Ps, couldn't attach the new policy since it is in PDF format.
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