Tata AIG Secured Future Plan – A Review

Accidental Insurance has yet to find a place in one’s risk management portfolio. Very few of us give importance to disability risk primarily due to lower probability of its occurrence. It makes us believe that this will not occur to us. Although chances may be very less but a disability, especially if it is permanent, can deprive the family from lifelong income. The situation may lead to lot of emotional stress among family members due to financial problems.

Most of the Disability Insurance policies in India offer a lumpsum payout. There are weekly or monthly compensation benefits but for a limited period. It is then left to the family to utilize the money and generate the desired income for their living. A difficult task to complete considering the lack of knowledge and expertise.

However, Tata AIG Secured Future is one plan which provides a monthly income benefit up to 20 years in case of disability due to accident. One can choose the payout amount and the term within a specified range.

Here is a brief review of the product and what benefit does it provide:

Basic Features

Risk Covered

• Accidental death
• Paralysis and Dismemberment
• Permanent Total Disability

Other features

• No Medical Examination
• World Wide Coverage
• The Monthly benefit is guaranteed for the term
• Max sum insured can be opted as 10 times of monthly income in case of salaried individuals and 20 times in case of self-employed individuals

 What is not Covered?

The general exclusion of the policy includes suicide, military service or operations, war, illegal act, bacterial infections, disease, AIDS, dangerous sports etc which is there in all major accidental policies. Apart from this if there is any preexisting disease, it does not get covered under the policy. For a detailed exclusion one can look at policy wordings of the product.

Claim Settlement

The company aims to provide an easy claim settlement with their 24 hour toll free number. The complete process once the required documents are received is expected to be completed within 7 days. The company has specified list of documents to be kept ready for speedy claim. However, as per company, it may ask for additional documents/ information and/or carry out survey / inspection/investigation where felt necessary.

Why it is Considerable?

The biggest risk in disability is loss of future income. For a family where the breadwinner is a single person the risk is too high. Most accidental insurance policies give a lump sum benefit or a weekly compensation for too short period. This may not be the best form of compensation as the family will not be well informed on generating regular income through investing options and can be lured to wrong products. Any investment mistake can deprive the monthly amount that is required for meeting the basic needs. Tata Secured Future tries to bridge this gap by providing the monthly benefits instead of a lump sum amount. For any family this surely removes the stress of identifying those investment avenues where they lack knowledge and avoid costly mistakes. The product may not meet the inflation requirement but it does help in mitigating disability risk to an extent. Also there is no restriction for other products and so one can supplement it with a lump sum benefit policy to have benefit of lump sum and regular income stream.

It can be a considerable product especially when one has an irregular income flow. The fixed monthly option for the term helps in meeting the basic living expenses and can be chosen based on one’s expense estimations. However, one should evaluate the premium cost and own requirement to look at suitability of the product.

Disclaimer: My objective is to identify the products which stand apart from the crowd and help in meeting personal risk of an individual. All the information has been taken from company website and so one should evaluate the product in detail before taking any decision