Insurance agent killed wives for claim?

While in most cases insurance is used to guarantee a medical or financial emergency, in a twist of fate life insurance has become a cause of murder. At least that’s what seems to be the case in Gokak.

An LIC agent has been discredited and imprisoned for allegedly having taken the lives of his two wives within a gap of two years, in order to get the benefit of their life insurance.

The story unfurled a few days ago when Shankarlingappa Basalingappa Maji, a 30-year-old LIC agent, reported the death of his second wife, arousing the curiosity of the people of Kalloli in Gokak taluka in Belgaum district.

Maji, a native of Bijapur district moved to Kalloli a decade ago and villagers claim that he killed his first wife with similar motives, two years ago.

They alleged Shankar killed his wife two years ago and got a huge amount from the LIC policy he had in her name.

They said he also killed his second wife, Jayshri, on March 15 for the same purpose.
Maji’s neighbours said they were told that Jayshri was killed in a blast from a water-heater stove. Jayshri’s dying statement too says the same, but they believe that she must have said so only to protect her two little sons.

Surprisingly, the villagers reminded that Maji’s father and father-in-law (father of his first wife) too had died abruptly nine years ago, and they now suspect that to be Maji’s doing too. The villagers point at how Maji became a crorepati in the village in a matter of months then.

The villagers staged a massive protest in Gokak on Wednesday during which they alleged that Maji had been smart enough to prove all the deaths to be accidental.”This time we are not letting him get away,” said one of the villagers.

Irked by his criminal acts, the whole of Kalloli village was shut down on Wednesday.
Villagers, including women and children, demanded a death sentence for Maji. The situation got progressively more violent and the police had to resort to lathi charge and firing in the air.

A house and some public property was also damaged in the protest.

The women of the village have warned the police that they will burn Maji if he is released from custody of the police or even tries escaping punishment.

Gokak police, who have already arrested Maji on Tuesday night, arrested 40 more persons for causing damage to public property on Wednesday.

Budget 2013: Insurance penetration in smaller cities

Insurers may be a little disappointed as the budget didn’t seek to make insurance more attractive by increasing the section 80C deduction limit of Rs.1 lakh, but what may cheer them up is that the finance minister has taken measures to increase the penetration of the sector from the supply side.

Higher penetration

In his budget speech, the finance minister, has allowed insurance companies to open up branch offices in tier II cities and below without prior approval from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority or Irda. “Insurers need prior approval of the regulator at the time of opening any office but that’s never been a major issue,” says G. Murlidhar, managing director, Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Ltd. To this effect, the government will also set up at least one branch office of state-owned Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) and one state-owned non-life company—United India Insurance Co. Ltd, National Insurance Co Ltd, The Oriental Insurance Co Ltd or The New India Assurance Co Ltd—in all towns of India with a population of 10,000 or more by the end of FY14.

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How to Choose a Health Insurance Policy

Medical emergencies can strike anytime therefore insurance coverage is a must for everyone. When medical bills hit the roof, the best thing to have is a health insurance policy that offers you peace of mind. If you are looking to buy a health insurance policy, here are all the answers to your questions.

What is the minimum premium to be paid as per the plan?
You will need to pay premium according to your insurance plan and variant. But, you will need to find out the amount the insurance company will cover in case of medical treatment. If your treatment exceeds this amount, you will have to pay the difference.

What are the exemptions?
Some health insurance companies will not pay for regular checkups. Find out if the insurance company is ready to cover all costs. Do read up the policy documents and go through their FAQs for a better understanding.

What happens if I don’t make any claims in the particular policy year?
If you have an insurance agent, ask him/her about what happens if you have a claim-free year. Also read the documents or any kind of information that you may find important. Some insurers offer increase in the benefits amount / decrease in the regular premium in case of a claim free year.

Does it cover international travel?
If your job sends you out of the country every month, it is necessary to take travel insurance into consideration. Most insurance policies do not cover international travel. Those that do are available at a higher premium. If you travel a lot, you should opt for one that will cover international health problems.

What is the payment going to be like?
You need to find out whether you will have to pay the hospital first and be reimbursed later or whether the company offers a cashless hospitalisation. If the company says it will reimburse you, it shouldn’t be a problem unless you can’t get all the money in place on time.

Health insurance frauds: Experts warn of sharp rise in mediclaim scams

Nine out of ten health insurance frauds in country's insurance sector occur in the mediclaim policy segment and there is a need to adopt measures to reduce the trust deficit between insured and insurer to curb the scams, experts have said.

"In insurance industry, number of grievances received or number of frauds committed is an indicator of growth trend of particular segment. In entire insurance sector, 90 per cent of frauds and grievances come from health policies," said Niraj Kumar, General Manager, Oriental Insurance Company.

He was addressing a seminar on health insurance at Amity University yesterday.

Kumar said if one has to draw two curves for health insurance segment, one indicating growth and second learning curve, it can be observed that the growth curve is ahead of learning curve.

This, he added, implies that industry's main aim is only to sell and market health policies, but there are important takeaways in such shortcomings so that the level of mistrust between insured and insurer can be minimised.

Richard Kipp, Managing Director, consulting firm Milliman said, health insurance in India has increased tremendously over few years but India needs to be cautious in its growth vis-à-vis the US where growth has now become stagnant.

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Bank, insurance services paralysed

Public-sector banks and many government offices were shut on Thursday on the second day of a general strike called by 11 trade unions pressing their demands and to protest against the ‘government’s pro-market reforms’. The bank employees, under the banner of United Forum of Bank Unions
Indore, took out a rally and held demonstration in front of the divisional commissioner office. Later, they handed over a memorandum addressed to the Prime Minister to the deputy commissioner.

“On the second day also, no operations were conducted in 5,797 bank branches in Madhya Pradesh, including 385 branches in Indore of 26 public sector banks, 11 private sector banks and eight foreign banks and rural banks,” a release issued by the bank union stated. Certain private sector banks including ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and IndusInd Bank were functional and foreign banks such as HSBC and Citibank also remained open.

Banking operations were ‘badly hit’ in Indore due to the two- day nationwide called by Central trade unions. In Indore the clearing house operation is managed by the State Bank of India, where the strike was total along with the other nationalised banks, said Alok Khare, general secretary, MP Bank Officers’ Association.

Most of the shopkeepers in Sarafa, the gold market of Indore, who daily deposit cash in banks were saddled with cash that they were forced to keep in their safes.

Apart from banks, work came to a standstill in 42 post offices and 35 branches of Life Insurance and general insurance companies as the employees did not turn up for work.

While ATMs remained functional, people who wanted to withdraw large amount of cash were hit. Similarly, people who had to transfer funds also faced inconvenience as no transaction took place and the check clearing operations remained suspended for the second day in a row. However, internet banking reduced the impact of the strike to some extent.

Strike hits work in banking, insurance sector

BHOPAL: Banking and financial sector operations in the state were badly hit on Wednesday, first day of the two-day all India strike by trade unions of organized and unorganized sector to protest against economic policies of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. While banking business worth several thousand crore rupees came to a standstill, working in public sector undertakings like BHEL, BSNL and insurance companies were badly affected.

The call for the strike has been given by 11 central trade unions including Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and All India United Trade Union Centre.

Workers from the transport, mandi and mining sector were also on strike in parts of the state while others will join the general strike on Thursday.

In the state capital essential services like hospitals, public transport, petrol pumps, schools and colleges remained unaffected.

Joint front of trade unions (JFTU) described the strike as successful. "Employees in banking, insurance and others areas of organised sector struck work on day one. The strike was successful in unorganised sector also," said JFTU spokesman Pushan Bhattacharya.

Porters, transporters and traders will join the strike on Thursday.

United Forum of Bank Union coordinator VK Sharma said banking business worth Rs 67,000 crore was affected in Bhopal district on Thursday.

"There are 400 branches of nationalized banks in Bhopal district where 5,000 employees work. All participated in the strike," Sharma claimed. In MP, Rs 3.14 lakh crore banking business was affected. "In 5,800 branches of banks from Madhya Pradesh, about 40,000 employees took part in the strike," he claimed.

In Bhopal district, there are 400 ATMs of different nationalized banks. "The claims that banks had taken adequate measures and loaded additional cash in the ATMs to meet cash needs of customers turned out to be untrue as several ATMs went out of cash by afternoon and people were seen rushing from one counter to the other. Several complaints about cash withdrawal were received," he added. Customers would face more problems in withdrawing cash from ATMs on Thursday, he said.

Insurance, transport, banking sectors likely to be hit on trade unions strike

The country braced for a two-day nationwide strike called by 11 trade unions from tomorrow in support of their demands with banking, insurance and transport sector likely to be affected in some states.

As fresh appeals were made today to the trade unions to call of the strike, leading industry body Assocham warned that the economy would take a hit of between Rs 15,000 crore and Rs 20,000 crore due to disruption in economic activity.

The government renewed its appeal to the bank employees including from the RBI not to join the strike saying there is "really no reason" for them to go ahead with it.

Normal life is likely to be crippled in states like Kerala and Tripura where workers from various sectors including transport and banking are set to join the protest against the Centre's economic and labour policies.

States like West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka and parts of Uttar Pradesh are likely to be affected significantly, Assocham president Rajkumar Dhoot said in a statement in Kolkata. Apart from unions owing allegiance to the Left, the pro-Congress INTUC and pro-BJP BMS are also participating in the strike.

The unions have put forward a charter of 10 demands such as urgent steps to control price rise, strict enforcement of labour laws in all places of work, social security net for workers in the unorganised sector, end to disinvestment in PSUs and raising minimum wage to Rs 10,000 a month.