Sudhakar Gupta has taken a life insurance policy on his life on 7-2-2018 for ₹1 lakh. But to get the benefit of lesser age premium the date of commencement of the policy is given as 7-4-2017. His yearly premium is ₹10,30

CS Professional · Insurance - Law and Practice · PYQS · December 2020
Sudhakar Gupta has taken a life insurance policy on his life on 7-2-2018 for ₹1 lakh. But to get the benefit of lesser age premium the date of commencement of the policy is given as 7-4-2017. His yearly premium is ₹10,305 and the second yearly premium was due on 7-4-2018. Sudhakar Gupta and Sachin Agarwal were partners in a business. Sachin Agarwal has also insured his life for a premium of ₹2,486 per annum. They issued a joint cheque towards combined premium on 7-5-2018. The insurer issued a stamped receipt on 25-5-2018 and sent the cheque for collection. The cheque for the premium amount was dishonoured and the cheque was sent back by the bank on 8-6-2018. The intimation of the dishonoured cheque was sent by the company on 21-7-2018 which was posted by it on 30-7-2018. It was posted to Sudhakar Gupta's residence and was received at his residence on 1-8-2018. The intimation required that Sudhakar Gupta is to pay the premium with interest by 16-8-2018. But the insurers were not aware that in an uneventful incident of an accident on 28-7-2018, Sudhakar Gupta had already expired. Anita Gupta, the wife of Sudhakar Gupta claimed the insurance and also the accident cover. She said that the insurer was deficient in the services and did not intimate about the dishonour of the cheque in time. To support her statement, she quoted the insurer's circular that stated that the intimation of the dishonoured cheques should be intimated immediately by the concerned staff by contacting the policyholder, which is not done in this particular case. Required: State whether Anita Gupta will get the insured money from the company, i.e. is her claim maintainable? Discuss with reference to: Payment of premium and grace period

Answer & Explanation:

As per terms of a Life insurance policy and also the regulations specified by the IRDA for protection of policyholders, a grace period of one month (30 days) will be allowed for payment of yearly, half-yearly or quarterly premiums and 15 days for monthly premiums. If death occurs within this period and before the payment of the premium then due, the policy will be still valid and the sum assured will be paid after the deduction of the said premium. In this case, the premium was due on 7.4.2018. The cheque was paid on 7.5.2018 after the lapse of the grace period. The company sent it for collection on 25.5.2018 and it was returned on 8.6.2018 which means that for 60 days as against the grace period of 30 days the premium was not paid. Both Sudhakar Gupta and Sachin Agarwal must definitely be aware that there were insufficient funds in the Bank. The policy lapsed as the premium was not paid in the grace period.

Topics: Life Insurance Claims

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