Life insurance is a very popular product on which a lot of people in our country rely on to protect the financial security of their family. It is a long term contract and as per the section 64 VB of the insurance act 1938 the insurance company mandatorily needs to collect the premium in advance for any coverage to be in place.
It implies that, to keep the policy in force the policyholder must keep on paying the premium as per his mode and frequency of payment, failing to do so will make the policy cover null and the policyholder will lose the benefits and the security cushion of the insurance.
So either you are paying your life insurance premium in monthly instalments, half yearly or per annum, in all possibilities you are going to continue the same for a long period of time say 20-30 years or even more as per the premium paying term of the insurance product purchased.
Continually paying premium for such a long time may be difficult in some of the cases where an individual has some other financial commitments or facing some money crunch. Although paying premium upfront is mandatory by law it’s not the case can falling due of payment your policy will immediately stop coverage.
Here the concept of policy lapse comes into the picture; a policy gets lapsed on account of non-payment of insurance premiums on due date or any grace period allowed by your policy and exhaustion of cash surrender value.
But no need to panic, the insurance policy can be revived after it becomes lapse and the purpose of the article is to show some ways to our readers to do the same. The revival of policy is a pretty simple process which one can do online, through the insurance agent or by visiting the concerned office.
First we will understand the types of revival schemes offered by Life insurance Corporation of India and then will discuss some important points regarding the same which the policyholder should be well aware of. Finally we will provide you some general steps to revive your lapsed insurance policy online.
Under the special revival scheme the insured needs to provide a written request which can only be accepted if policy has expired between the time periods of 6 months to 3 years.
In the instalment revival scheme the policyholder who is facing an issue in paying the annual premium in one go can request for the same with a condition that there should be no lone outstanding under the policy at the time of revival and no survival benefit can fall due during instalment paying period of revival.
The insured can renew money back policies by submitting the survival benefit discharge with self-consent form duly signed and attached in the survival benefit cum revival scheme.
Insurance Company recovers arrears of premium from the amount available as a loan, this is how lapsed policy can be revived in the loan cum revival scheme.
In other words the policyholder is provided a loan, obviously if such a facility or amount is available which he in turn can use to pay the premium for his lapsed policy. Any difference in the loan amount and the premium needed for revival needs to be borned by the insured.
In the above paragraph what all conditions and methods have been mentioned is no holy grail and obviously there are other terms and conditions attached to each revival procedure explained above. The insurance company will generally ask for the interest on the premiums due. In addition to the interest part there may be a charge of fines or penalties involved.
Generally in all cases the revival procedure can be done if the maximum amount of time has not passed from the date of last premium due. In some cases the insurer may ask for health records or prescribe some tests to ascertain the insurability under the policy. Again this depends from insurer to insurer and product to product that what the terms and conditions of revival will be or if there any revival possible at all.
Other private insurers or LIC themselves may bring out some innovative and completely new scheme to revive the lapsed policy under its ambit. LIC usually launches various campaigns with discounts or free exemptions on the fines to revive the policy.
It not the case that many lapsed policies is anyway going to be profitable for the life insurer as he is discharged of his liabilities on these. No insurer will want that considerable amount of policies gets lapsed in their bucket as it is not good for their business.
Steps for online revival:
- Login to the internet portal on the official website of your insurer. If the facility is also provided under an android mobile application you can do the revival process from there as well.
- Under your account, go to the specific product which you want to revive. Talk to the customer care or drop a mail to them regarding any exemptions or benefits available under the revival.
- Pay the outstanding premium with any fines or penalties applicable from internet banking or by the help of credit/debit cards.
- Your policy should be activated. Don’t forget to download the premium payment receipt, revival letter, and other supporting documents to enjoy the continued financial protection as earlier.