Humanity & its belongings reside on the verge of risking death, devastation, and disability. The devastation of humankind and its belongings can lead to severe financial losses that might not be bearable. To get yourself out of this risk pit, it is crucial to find a prudent solution like insurance. 

When you buy the best insurance, you can gain an advantage to forward your risks to the insurance agency. Insurance is a vague topic, so we are here explaining insurance’s importance, types, and benefits so that you can comprehend the outline of the aspect. 

Introduction to Insurance

A legal agreement within two bodies that is the individual (insured) and the insurance agency is known as insurance. The insurance agency takes responsibility to provide benefit from the losses of insured or occurrence of individual’s contingency. However, contingency is explained as the demise of the insured party or the devastation of property. With the payment of the premium insured gets a commitment from the insurer. 

Importance of Insurance

A legal contract is signed between an insurance company and the insured that is termed a general insurance policy. This insurance policy incorporates every uncertain condition and circumstance under which the insurance company will provide a monetary benefit to the insured person or to nominees. 

In addition, the money paid is higher than the insurance premium. The insurance company takes the risk of providing higher monetary benefits for a lesser premium as there is lesser likability for you to get into contingency. The decision to provide insurance claims to the insured lay majorly in the hands of the insurance company at discretion. Talking about the general occurrences, the insurance company denies providing claims to high-risk individuals. 

Types of insurance

Insurance can be categorized into five constituents that one can opt-in India as:

• Health insurance that proffers covers medical expenses for treatments. A vast assortment of health problems can be covered under this insurance policy. It is ideal for getting a general health insurance cover for preventing loss on your savings by paying for diseases and ailments.  

• Life insurance is what its name explains insurance to your life. The insured gets a life insurance policy or cover for their beloved ones to keep them away from financial hassles after their demise. People who are the one & only breadwinners for the family must pick for life insurance. 

• Education insurance resembles life insurance, where it acts as a saving tool for a child for their higher education. To pay higher payouts for your children’s education when they become 18 or above is what education insurance provides cover for. 

• Car insurance benefits car owners against occurring of untoward scenarios. 

• Home insurance is a shield to your house of dreams from natural disasters, fire accidents, and perils. 

However, you can also get elephant insurance for providing cover to your business, which is not easily available in India. 

Perks of Insurance

There are multiple perks of insurance other than safety and security as you can also avail income tax benefits. With life insurance premium covering 1.5lakh can help you to deduct costs under section 80C. Additionally, medical insurance policy worth 25000 rupees akin for your family with the same worth is advantageous for tax under Section 80D so that insurance will benefit twice. 

Most companies distribute the same through brokers and agents, while few companies sell insurance products directly to clients. To work as per convenience and the opportunity to create a massive difference in a person’s life working as an insurance broker offers more flexibility. It is the most rewarding career as it helps people to take care of children, build assets, plan for retirement, and pass wealth from one generation to the next.

Things that insurance brokers do:

Insurance brokers are majorly independent. They don’t have an agreement with particular insurers. They usually represent insurance buyers and take forward the applications to insurers on behalf of their clients. Ideally, after becoming an insurance broker, they are not appointed by insurers. Instead, they educate the clients about several insurance products from different insurance companies and help them choose the best among them.

The majority of the people wonder whether ‘Insurance Agents and Insurance Brokers – Are the same? 

What makes insurance brokers unique from insurance agents?

Insurance brokers choose from a variety of insurance products and help the clients to choose a policy that is adequate for their needs. In contrast, insurance agents work with one company and sell insurance products available in their company. You can determine the most appropriate products for them, unlike agents, they provide options, and it’s up to the clients to assess the products they need. Additionally, brokers typically charge payments that are higher than those authorized by an agent.

Who can apply for an insurance broker license?

When it comes to becoming an insurance broker, an Insurance broker license and their operations are issued as per IRDA regulations. The ones who can apply for an insurance broker license are:

• A company registered under the Companies Act, 2013 or any previous variant.
• A registered co-operative society is registered as per the provisions of the Co-operative Societies Act, 1912, or other similar laws.
•  An LLP registered under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008.
•  Any person recognized by the authority.

Qualification and training details:

• Must have a bachelor’s/master’s degree or any equivalent qualification like being a fellow or an associate of the Insurance Institute of India/Insurance Institute of Risk Management/Insurance Brokers Association of India.
• The person must have undergone adequate hours of theoretical and practical training recognized by the Insurance Regulatory Authority of India.
• Once training is over, get passed the exam conducted by the National Insurance Academy.
• Retain a minimum capital as per regulations provided by the authority.
• Engage in any insurance consultancy or reinsurance activity for seven years from the date before the application is submitted. Otherwise, being a principal underwriter or manager in any nationalized company in India.

The license can be issued after the necessary conditions are satisfied. Unless the same is suspended by the regulations, it can be valid for 3 years from the issued date. Before the license gets expired, a broker may apply for license renewal within 30 days. Brokers carrying brochures and loads of policy documents to meet people are not a situation anymore.

Does Your Existing Health Insurance Policy cover COVOID-19?

With the increasing amount of COVID-19 instances in India, a rising number of individuals are making up questions about their health plans and ensuring this viral disease. Thus, it’s easy to be inundated through those hard times. It’s crucial to obtain clarity about what you could do to stay safe and protect yourself from undesirable conditions.

Statistics have revealed that less than 4 percent of individuals with COVID-19 in India have medical insurance policies. The government has decided to fortify capacity by enabling private hospitals to execute evaluations. Dr. BRC has conveyed topics regarding COVID-19 one must listen before insurance.

Nonetheless, in a nation where health insurance is meager, the expense of hospitalization could be prohibitive. That is because medical inflation has been rising at twice the rate of overall inflation. Hand sanitizers, face masks, and social distancing aside, estimating your wellbeing has perhaps never been more significant.

Standalone or top-up medical insurance programs can help you pay for therapy costs in an identification event. In case you’ve got a household floater program, you might have the advantage of a more significant amount insured. But if you’ve got a history of respiratory ailments, a severely committed illness cover is a far better choice.

What will your health insurance plan cover?

Present medical insurance policies would pay for hospitalization expenses if the individual were hospitalized for over 24 hours after being diagnosed with COVID-19. Several insurance companies have stated the coverage would pay for costs incurred for pre-hospitalization maintenance, diagnostics, and consultation policy. The individual insured tests positive from a registered medical practitioner, quarantine-related expenses primarily for isolated patients and only at registered centers are also covered. It might consist of ICU charges based upon your insurance policy cover.

And all costs are settled based on the stipulations of the coverage. Thus, it’s suggested to contact your insurance company and explain how much space and bed charges are insured under your policy.

Coverage for communicable diseases

COVID-19 is a strange kind of virus that needs intensive testing, therapy, and isolation in a psychiatric hospital ward. Given the dangers, the Perfect Medical Insurance strategy for COVID-19 patients must comprise the following:

• Extended hospitalization pay – Using prolonged hospitalization cover, you can prevent inflated medical bills in the event of a crisis.
• The high amount guaranteed – A standard medical insurance policy with a sum insured of Rs 3-5 lakh is an excellent beginning. Based upon the number of dependents, look at obtaining a fixed advantage add-on cover to look after any co-pay or allowable conditions.
• Vaccination pay – While there’s not been any official vaccine published for its COVID-19 virus nonetheless, the possibilities are that investigators might develop a process to take care of this outbreak.
• Compensation for loss of earnings – Any illness necessitating extended hospitalization is always accompanied by a reduction of revenue.
• Follow-up tests – Many patients are just declared with the COVID-19 virus should they have two negative evaluations in one day. Moreover, reports indicate that the COVID-19 virus may return after the individual has completely recovered. In cases like this, follow-up may want to be covered for individuals, particularly if they’re in danger of contracting the virus.
• Coverage for your whole family – The probability of neighborhood spread on account of the infected individual coming into contact with their family, acquaintances, and others should be considered. A household floater program with reduced sub-limits on pre-and – post-hospitalization expenses can offer an additional advantage.

Insurance is a big business today. All kinds of insurance, be it car insurance, home insurance, health insurance, have lots of customers. For those of you who are new to this concept, insurance is defined as the contract, in which a company or a person receives financial reimbursement or protection against losses, from an insurance firm. The insurance firm pools customers’ risks to make payments much more affordable for the entity which is being insured. In the olden days, insurance was purchased manually, by directly going to the companies or through their respective agents. The process was tedious and cumbersome.

At present times, the insurance market is dominated by purchasing all the policies online. Nearly every insurance firm such as Bajaj Allianz, Aviva, TATA AIG, and Life Insurance Corporation sells its policies online. The online insurance market is growing at a rate of thirty percent per year. Nearly every big company, that has an online presence, also helps customers to purchase car insurance online. Individuals looking for insurance for any kind of brands such as Maruti, Tata, Renault, Volkswagen, etc and any type of automobile like Small cars, big cars, or Smart Utility vehicles will be able to do it with just one click over the internet. Now, people must be wondering, why the online market is growing so fast. So, let us give the advantages of purchasing insurance online.

Benefits of online insurance purchase

1. Comparison

This is one of the biggest advantages of purchasing online insurance. The online aggregator assists customers in purchasing online policies. For example, if an individual desire to purchase car insurance, then he/she can go to the no1 site www.policybazaar.com, and check out his favourite policy and purchase it instantly. Using this tool, he will be able to compare Features, Exclusions, Benefits, Inclusions, Premiums, and Car Insurance Online prices of various policies from the site, using a click.

2. A lot of time is saved.

Since, in this era, where both husband and wife work, people have very little time, for going to the company’s insurance office, standing in queues, and purchasing their favourite policies. So, they turn to the internet, since it is extremely convenient, and there is very little paperwork. Another benefit is that customers get a hard copy instantly in PDF format, without having to wait weeks for the courier.

3. The duplicate policy is issued instantly

In the past, when policyholders lost their policy documents, they had to contact agents or spend hours and hours together in a queue, filling up forms, to get their duplicate policy issued. Now, thanks to the facility of online insurance, customers get a soft copy of the policy instantly and also a hard copy. This acts as a big incentive for them to purchase their policies online.

4. Customer support is 24*7.

Another big benefit of online car insurance is the presence of 24*7 customer support. Customers can clear doubts, or ask for new services and products from the insurance firms, by contacting their customer care services. Nearly, all the customer care services are available by phone, chat, Skype, Social Media, LinkedIn, etc.