Talk to us

Five lines of cover · India

Cover placed on the wording.

Protection, saving, motor, fire and home. Five lines and nothing else. For each one: what it actually does, what it does not, and what we check before it is placed. Nothing on this page is a quotation.

Five lines of cover

Start with what is on your mind.

Most households need three of these and can leave the rest until later. We will tell you which three, and in what order.

Protection Saving Motors Fire & allied perils Home

We do not underwrite risk. Every policy is issued by an IRDAI-registered insurer and governed by the wording issued to you.

01 — Protection

The income, not the person, is what you replace.

Pure risk cover. A term policy pays a lump sum to your nominee if you die during the term, and pays nothing if you do not.

There is no maturity value, and that is the point. You are replacing an income for the years your family still depends on it. Because none of the premium is being set aside for you, the same outlay buys a far larger sum assured than any policy that also returns money. That is the entire argument for term cover, and it is why we start here rather than anywhere else.

The sum assured is arithmetic, not a slogan. Annual income multiplied out is only the starting point. Outstanding loans are added, because a family should never inherit a debt and a funeral in the same month. Money already held is subtracted. What is left is the figure we apply for.

The term matters as much as the sum. Cover that ends the year before your youngest child finishes studying is cover that was never really bought.

See how this is sized against a loan

Anyone with dependants

Term life

A level sum assured for a fixed number of years, paid to your nominee on death during the term. No maturity benefit, no investment component, no bonus.

What we check first

  • Sum assured built from loans, dependants and years of support — not a multiple copied off a brochure
  • Term set to the year your youngest dependant becomes financially independent
  • Medical and financial disclosure completed in full at proposal stage — the single largest cause of a repudiated claim
  • Nomination recorded correctly, and whether the payout should be ring-fenced under the Married Women's Property Act
  • Riders judged one at a time on the wording, rather than accepted as a bundle
  • Payout mode — lump sum, staged income, or both — matched to who will actually be managing the money
An older couple on a balcony in morning light
Cover is sized for the years the money is still needed, then reviewed as those years run down.

02 — Saving

A guarantee, and what it costs.

Endowment, money-back and guaranteed income plans combine cover with a return. They are the right answer for some households and the wrong one for others. We will show you which, in figures, before anything is signed.

Long horizon

Endowment

Pays the sum assured on death during the term, and a maturity benefit if you survive it. Premiums are level and the term is long. The saving is enforced by the contract rather than by your willpower.

What we check first

  • Whether the maturity benefit is guaranteed, participating, or a mix — and which part is which
  • The premium paying term against the policy term; they are frequently not the same
  • What the surrender value would be in years three, five and ten
  • Whether the cover on its own would be adequate if this were the only life policy held
Periodic payouts

Money-back

Returns a part of the sum assured at fixed intervals through the term, with the balance and any accrued bonus at maturity. Cover continues at the full sum assured throughout, even after survival benefits have been paid.

What we check first

  • The survival benefit schedule, and whether those dates match a real need or simply feel reassuring
  • Whether the payouts are guaranteed amounts or bonus-dependent
  • The effect of taking money out early on the final maturity figure
  • That the return of your own capital is not being presented to you as income
Defined stream

Guaranteed income

Converts a limited premium paying term into a stated stream of payouts for a fixed number of years, with the amounts written into the contract rather than linked to markets.

What we check first

  • The exact rupee amounts, the exact dates, and the total paid in against the total paid out
  • The deferment period between the last premium and the first payout
  • Whether the guarantee is on the amount, on the term, or on both
  • Inflation over the payout period — a fixed rupee figure twenty years out is not the figure it looks like today

Read the illustration net.

Every one of these plans comes with a benefit illustration. The scenarios in it are prescribed assumptions used for comparison — they are not forecasts, and they are shown before the policy's own charges and the cost of the cover attached to it. The only figure that tells you anything is the return on the money you actually pay in, after all of that, over the full term.

We work that figure out with you, on paper, from the insurer's own illustration. Ask for it in writing. Any adviser unwilling to put the net position on paper has told you something without meaning to.

Then we show the other column: what a pure term policy would cost for the same cover, and what the difference in premium would have to earn, invested separately, to match the guarantee. Sometimes the savings plan wins — a guarantee you will actually keep is worth more than a return you will abandon in a bad year. Sometimes it does not. You should see both columns either way.

The comparison

The same money, two ways

Before you choose between a savings plan and term cover plus a separate investment, these are the five lines we put side by side.

What we compare, in front of you

  • The guaranteed maturity or income in rupees, against the total premiums you will pay
  • The sum assured a pure term policy would buy for the same annual outlay
  • What the difference in premium, invested separately, would need to earn to match the guarantee
  • Liquidity — what happens if you stop paying in year three, and what you would get back
  • The tax treatment of premium and payout under the rules as they stand when you buy

A worked example on the actual illustration for the plan you are shown.

03 — Motors

The exposure nobody prices.

Third-party cover is compulsory under the Motor Vehicles Act, and for death or injury caused to a third party the liability is not capped. That, rather than the dent in your own bumper, is the part worth reading.

Compulsory

Third-party liability

Covers what you become legally liable to pay a third party for injury, death or damage to their property. Property damage carries a statutory limit. Injury and death do not — the tribunal decides the figure, and it decides it years later.

What we check first

  • That the policy is live on the date you are driving, not merely renewed at some point
  • Long-term third-party cover on a new vehicle, and the separate date own-damage falls due
  • Cover for a paid driver, where one is employed
  • Whether the vehicle's declared use matches how it is actually used
Optional, and usual

Own damage

Repairs or replaces your own vehicle after an accident, fire, flood or theft. The insured declared value is the ceiling on what can be paid, and it is fixed when the policy is written — not when the claim is made.

What we check first

  • Insured declared value set honestly against the vehicle's age, never shaved to lower a premium
  • No-claim bonus preserved, and carried across correctly when you change vehicle
  • The deductible on the policy, compulsory and voluntary, before you agree to it
  • Whether a small claim is worth making at all once the lost bonus is counted
Judged one at a time

Add-ons

Zero depreciation, engine protection, return to invoice, consumables, roadside assistance. Each is worth something on some vehicles and nothing on others. Age, use and where the car is parked decide which.

What we check first

  • Zero depreciation weighed on the vehicle's actual age and the claim limits attached to it
  • Engine protection where the vehicle is parked or driven anywhere that floods
  • Return to invoice only while the vehicle is new enough for it to mean anything
  • What each add-on costs against what it would ever pay — bundles are sold, not advised
Claim intimation is handled by us. You should be speaking to someone who knows the policy, not to whoever answers a helpline.

04 — Fire & allied perils

What it would cost to build it again.

For a home, a shop, a godown or a small manufacturing unit. Flood, storm, riot, impact damage and subsidence normally sit under the same policy as fire itself. The standardised Bharat Sookshma Udyam and Bharat Laghu Udyam wordings cover most small enterprises without amendment.

Building and plant

Structure, plant, machinery

The premises and everything fixed inside them. Sum insured is set on what it would cost to reinstate the property, not on what it would sell for and not on what it cost you originally.

What we check first

  • Reinstatement value calculated on current construction cost, revisited as that cost moves
  • On rented premises, who insures the structure and who insures the fit-out
  • Plant and machinery listed properly, so an item is never argued about after a fire
  • Which allied perils are included as standard and which have to be added
Stock

Stock and contents

Goods held for trade, raw material, work in progress and finished stock. Stock values move through the year, which is exactly why under-insurance shows up here more often than anywhere else.

What we check first

  • Peak stock declared honestly, including festival and season build-ups
  • A declaration policy where stock swings widely, rather than one fixed figure all year
  • Goods held on behalf of others, which are frequently not covered by default
  • Basis of valuation — cost, market value or selling price — agreed in writing at proposal
Where trade depends on premises

Business interruption

Pays the loss of gross profit and the standing costs that continue while the premises are unusable. The fire policy rebuilds the shop. This is what keeps the business alive while it is being rebuilt.

What we check first

  • An indemnity period set to how long restarting would genuinely take, including approvals
  • Gross profit calculated on the accounts, not estimated in a meeting
  • Wages and other standing charges you would still be paying with the shutters down
  • Whether the cover is needed at all — for some trades it is the most important line on the schedule

Under-insurance is settled proportionately.

If the sum insured is set below the value at risk, the average clause reduces every claim in the same proportion — including a small one, and including a claim that has nothing to do with the shortfall. Insuring for half of what you own does not buy you a cheaper policy. It buys you half a policy, on every claim, for as long as you hold it.

This is the single most common defect we find on commercial cover already in force. It is also the easiest to fix, and it costs nothing to check.

Commercial cover is placed on documents rather than on estimates. We ask for the figures early, and we ask for them again at renewal.

05 — Home

Land does not burn.

Structure and contents, for owners and for tenants. The standardised Bharat Griha Raksha wording is the starting point. The sum insured is the cost of rebuilding — never what the flat would fetch, because the land underneath it survives whatever happened above.

Owners

Structure

The building itself against fire, flood, earthquake, storm and allied perils, with the cost of rebuilding it to the same specification. Long-term policies are available on an owned home and usually make sense.

What we check first

  • Sum insured on rebuild cost per square foot, excluding the value of the land
  • What the housing society's own policy already covers, so the structure is never insured twice
  • Fixtures, fittings and any interior work done since possession
  • Whether a longer policy term locks in terms worth locking in
Owners and tenants

Contents

Everything inside — furniture, appliances, electronics, jewellery. Tenants insure contents alone. Owners insure both, and the two sums are worked out separately because they are answering different questions.

What we check first

  • Contents valued honestly, with jewellery and portable electronics scheduled where the wording requires it
  • Alternative accommodation cover while the home is uninhabitable
  • Burglary cover, and the conditions attached to leaving the home unoccupied
  • Whether valuables are covered away from the premises, or only inside them
A modern Indian house exterior in golden-hour light
Rebuild cost, not market value. A home is insured for what it takes to put it back, and the two figures are rarely close.

Before anything is placed

The parts people find out about too late.

No policy on this page pays for everything. We would rather you read the limits now than meet them at a claim.

The proposal form is the contract

Anything withheld at proposal stage — a medication, a past admission, an earlier claim, a declined application — can void the policy at the moment it is needed. We complete disclosure in full, with you, before it is signed.

Sums insured are set now and tested later

On fire, home and motor cover, a sum insured below the value at risk reduces every settlement in the same proportion. Premium saved at proposal is paid back at claim, with interest.

Renewals do not all fall together

Motor own-damage, fire and home cover run to different dates, and some run for several years at a time. We hold the calendar, so a lapse is never discovered on the day it matters.

No claim outcome is guaranteed. Settlement rests with the insurer, on the wording issued to you and on complete, accurate disclosure at proposal.

How we handle a claim

Bring whatever you already hold.

Existing policies, a renewal notice, a proposal someone else has prepared. We will read all of it and tell you what it does, what it does not, and whether it is worth keeping.

Book a consultation WhatsApp us