Sum assured cut, CA moves court against LIC

Sum assured cut, CA moves court against LIC

Jay.Pachchigar@timesgroup.com

Vadodara:10.02.2021 

A city-based chartered accountant has knocked the doors of the consumer court after the Life Insurance Corporation’s (LIC) ‘Jeevan Saral’ cited typograhical errors to reduce his sum assured on maturity in its policy.

CA Sanjeev Shah has claimed that he purchased ‘Jeevan Saral’ policy in July 2006 and had been regularly paying quarterly premium of Rs 3,062. The policy is supposed to mature in 2022 and Shah has been assured an amount of Rs 2.5 lakh.

However, LIC wrote a letter to him last year saying that 14 years after issuing the policy, it came to their notice that was a typographical error while printing the schedule of the document. The company informed him that instead of Rs 2.5 lakh, he will be receiving Rs1.68 lakh.

As the assured amount was reduced by Rs 81,480 just two years before the maturity, Shah approached Vadodara District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum. Shah said that the policy, as its name suggests, is supposed to make people’s life easy, but instead it has made it difficult by passing an arbitrary decision.

“Insurance is all about trust, but when the company makes such decisions and gives such unintelligent reasons like typographical error, how can one tolerate it?,” said Shah in his appeal.

He has requested the court to make LIC pay the entire assured amount and additional amount of Rs 2.5 lakh as compensation for damages, harassment and litigation expenses.

“This is very irresponsible on the part of LIC as it is a government of India institution and hundreds of people from different walks of life must have relied on it,” said Shah’s lawyer Jaideep Verma.

The court will hear Shah’s case on February 26.

CA Sanjeev Shah has claimed that he purchased ‘Jeevan Saral’ policy in July 2006 and had been regularly paying quarterly premium of Rs 3,062