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: Forfeiture.

Answer & Explanation:

In certain cases and under certain circumstances, the insurance company can forfeit the money paid by the insured. Non-payment of premiums is one such circumstance. When the forfeiture clause has invoked, the claims under the policy shall cease and the money paid shall belong to the insurance company. In this case, this clause could very much be invoked by the insurance company.

Topics: Life Insurance Claims

Open in Interactive Practice Hub · Full Practice Hub · Chapter Weightage · More in this subject

Related Questions in this Topic