Page 48 - Insurance Times July 2021

contribution towards premium, there is no justification on How nominees can easily process Death
the wife's part to seek her share, he said.
Claim Settlement
"It is no doubt true that wife, mother and children are class-
I heirs of a male deceased and not the father. But the Death Claim settlement is one of the most important
heirship will not be taken into account for this type of responsibilities that an insurance company has to fulfil
contingency, in case the entire contribution is not made by towards its policyholders and claimants. This service has
the deceased and the same has been paid only by the father assumed greater importance in the wake of COVID-19 for
of the deceased." "In such circumstances, it is for the father all life insurance companies. Life insurance companies have
of the deceased to decide to give the money in its entirety an obligation to decide and settle claims promptly.
or in proportionate to any person, including class-I heirs," While insurance companies offer various options to the
the judge added. claimants of bereaved life assured to file a death claim,
It is needless to state here that if a deceased has already especially in times like these, where mobility itself is a
declared the nominee and if that person falls under the significant constraint and risk, insurance companies offer
categoryof class-I heir other than father, then there may various digital options for easy claim intimation by the
not be any problem in disbursement of the maturity amount. claimant. Generally, life insurance company websites offer
In the present case, in case the woman's father-in-law is the provision to file the death intimations digitally and also
able to establish that only he paid the entire premium by have the death claim intimation form which if required by
way of NEFT/RTGS /Transfer, other than remittance by cash the claimant can be printed and completed and couriered
in the name of his son, then there is no justification on the
to the insurance company.
part of the petitioner to seek for her share in the amount
and she has no case at all, the judge said. He then directed It may also be noted that life insurance falls under 'essential
the LIC to circulate this order to all its branches situated in services' and most of the life insurance companies have their
Tamil Nadu and collect details of similar cases and produce branch offices open (based on local conditions) to provide
them before the court on June 28, the next date of hearing all kinds of policyholder service, including claim registration
by way of counter. by claimants. T

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Student presented paper in a National seminar

Ms. Nisha Pandey (PGDM-Insurance Business Management batch of 2020-22) presented a paper titled 'Impact of
pandemic on SME sector and feasibility study of an insurance pandemic pool' on June 26th at National E-Conference
on Advances in Business, Management & Technology (NCABMT 2021) organised by Mahatma Gandhi Central
University, Motihari, Bihar.
This particular paper is based on her ongoing summer internship project work which she is doing under the able
guidance of Mr. Samiran Lahiri, an insurance veteran and Principal Officer of Preferred Partners Insurance Brokers
Pvt Ltd.
The work of Ms. Nisha was very well appreciated by the panel of jury members and she received a good number of
suggestions for further improvement.

48 The Insurance Times, July 2021