Trying to get an accident claim in India from govt.owned insurance companies can take easily more than a life term. This is my close experience about how my father-in-law is suffering with United India Insurance for more than 14 years.
His son and family passed away in a car accident in May-1997. He was an engineer and was around 30 years then. His wife was a few years younger to him and his daugter was about to go to play school. The accident had happened in a small town in Tamil Nadu. You can imagine the frame of mind of the parents who hear the shocking news of the death of their only son whom they have thought to be the pillar of their family and expected to take care of them after a few years.
As usual the case was filed in the local court in Tindivanum and a prominent local lawer has promised that he will take care of the case and as soon as possible the same can be closed by getting the maximum claim amount. My in-laws are from Kochi and both of them were ailing from health problems. Over 6 years it took for the Tindivanum court to spell their decision to pay a compensation of approximately 8 lakhs against the death claim of 3 persons. United India Insurance Company, a government of India enterprise, have delayed any action from them for more than an year before they went for an appeal to High Court in Chennai saying that the amount awarded by the lower court was too much and pleaded for reduction in the amount. They chose to make the case split into 3 seperate petitions, which is a cheap tactics to increase the effort of claimants in dealing with the case. For insurance companies, claim and compensations are an every day job and they knew the other party who resides in Kerala state will not have the energy and resource to attend to these cases in seperate dates regularly and they can drag it further for many more years.
My father in law was refered to a Chennai high court lawyer by the earlier lawyer. The new lawyer was such an irresponsible person, that I still suspect whether he was taking care of the interest of United India Insurance company. My father in law was completely in the dark about what was going on in Chennai High court due to his attorney's ignorance and mis-communication. After I have relocated to Bangalore in 2009, I made many trips to Chennai High Court and finally decided to move the cases to Lok Adalath. During November 2010, an agreement between United India Insurance and us was made in from of Lok Adalath for a reduced amount from the awarded amount by the lower court. After November 2010, when I am writing it now in June 2012, 17 MONTHS after the settlement on a reduced amount in front of Lok Adalath and 15 YEARS from the accident death of the 3 member family, our lawyer is saying that the sum will be issued soon. How soon is the "soon".....who knows ?
It is high time that the government get out of insurance business.
His son and family passed away in a car accident in May-1997. He was an engineer and was around 30 years then. His wife was a few years younger to him and his daugter was about to go to play school. The accident had happened in a small town in Tamil Nadu. You can imagine the frame of mind of the parents who hear the shocking news of the death of their only son whom they have thought to be the pillar of their family and expected to take care of them after a few years.
As usual the case was filed in the local court in Tindivanum and a prominent local lawer has promised that he will take care of the case and as soon as possible the same can be closed by getting the maximum claim amount. My in-laws are from Kochi and both of them were ailing from health problems. Over 6 years it took for the Tindivanum court to spell their decision to pay a compensation of approximately 8 lakhs against the death claim of 3 persons. United India Insurance Company, a government of India enterprise, have delayed any action from them for more than an year before they went for an appeal to High Court in Chennai saying that the amount awarded by the lower court was too much and pleaded for reduction in the amount. They chose to make the case split into 3 seperate petitions, which is a cheap tactics to increase the effort of claimants in dealing with the case. For insurance companies, claim and compensations are an every day job and they knew the other party who resides in Kerala state will not have the energy and resource to attend to these cases in seperate dates regularly and they can drag it further for many more years.
My father in law was refered to a Chennai high court lawyer by the earlier lawyer. The new lawyer was such an irresponsible person, that I still suspect whether he was taking care of the interest of United India Insurance company. My father in law was completely in the dark about what was going on in Chennai High court due to his attorney's ignorance and mis-communication. After I have relocated to Bangalore in 2009, I made many trips to Chennai High Court and finally decided to move the cases to Lok Adalath. During November 2010, an agreement between United India Insurance and us was made in from of Lok Adalath for a reduced amount from the awarded amount by the lower court. After November 2010, when I am writing it now in June 2012, 17 MONTHS after the settlement on a reduced amount in front of Lok Adalath and 15 YEARS from the accident death of the 3 member family, our lawyer is saying that the sum will be issued soon. How soon is the "soon".....who knows ?
It is high time that the government get out of insurance business.
