We now have various insurance companies which provide a wide range of insurance plans. There are also web site portals which help you with comparison charts of insurance companies giving you an overview of all their products.
An insurance plan helps us to provide the funds in times when we need it the most. It also helps in times when we are unable to get financially covered due to an accident. Such situation would arise when we meet with an unexpected accident. Car insurance is one of those important insurance policies one should be enrolled for. It protects you from unexpected expenses.

Nowadays insurance companies have introduced plans for every kind of need. They have products available to protect your home, life, health, car and more. One has various options to choose from.
But one has to be careful and make sure you choose the right policy for yourself. The policy which people normally invest are the basic ones like health , to save tax and make savings for the future like ULIP’s ,home and car.These policies benefits and are worth investing in.

The various kind of polices are:-

Those who love speed , driving is a forefront priority. And having an auto insurance is equally important. An Auto insurance helps in times when an unforeseen accident takes place. And the owner needs to pay a huge amount for legal and repairing purposes. Auto insurance compensates for theft and other mishaps too. Now availing of an auto insurance is much easy and simple. You can avail of an insurance policy online.

You can compare insurance quotes as well get the best insurance rate.The benefits also include discovering new discounts and not being locked into a long term relationship with an insurance company. Following are the benefits of applying for an online auto insurance.

Compare Quotes

According to a study, In the industry of General Insurance, Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company has become the fastest player..

The company has posted GWP(Gross Written Premium) of Rs 526 Crores for the period of April-December 2008,

The Company has surpassed previous year's (2007-08) GWP of Rs. 522 crore within 9 months of this year. In a statement on Friday, the company said it has posted a premium growth of 36 % (YTD), the highest in the industry.

Its market share has increased from 1.85% in March 2008 to 2.31% in November 2008.
Chola MS managing director S S Gopalarathnam said, this quarter's result is a testimony to its resilience.

Insurance policies are all set to take the ‘customisation’ path!!
The financial security covers will soon come with add-on services, by just paying some extra premium. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has approved the customisation of non-life policies for extra premium that insurers for new products from January 2009.
So when you buy a motor insurance policy, you may get options like a temporary replacement of a car in case it breaks down, or even complete reimbursement of damages even if the vehicle is over five-years-old , by paying extra premium on the insurance cover.

Dear Insurer,

It gives me great pleasure to announce the launch of Travel Insurance comparison @ BimaDeals.com.
As you are already aware, BimaDeals has pioneered the concept of online comparison in the Insurance sector in India.

In the past one year, we have not only found the specific requirements of customers in their search for Life & Health Insurance, but designed solutions which address these unique requirements, like the IVR channel for Health Insurance, Life Insurance comparison charts etc etc

Travel Insurance at BimaDeals would be launched in 3 phases:

The latest update from the Non-Life Insurance sector has confirmed that the once profitable Fire Insurance Business has now turned into a loss making unit for most Private players in the General Insurance sector.

The Economic Times reported that the scenario might be so bad that two of the players are looking for fresh infusion of funds to stay afloat and promoter of another is contemplating a complete sell-out.

So what went wrong? Most industry experts say that the agressive undercutting and sudden reduction in prices is to be blamed for this. This has led to a reduction in the percentage contribution of Fire Insurance in the overall protfolio's of Private Insurers.

Just read an article in the latest issue of Outlook titled "The Vanishing Middle"- which went on to talk about how intermediaries are being threatened with shrinking margins and new technology.
It covered three basic sectors:
- DSAs in banking sector
- TPAs in General Insurance
- Travel Agents

With around 5000 people, TPAs are probably the smallest of the lot (the article puts the DSA number at 35,000 and travel agents at 150,000). But interestingly all these 5000 are employed by 23 odd TPAs who currently have the IRDA license.

The various arguments in favor of a possible demise of this category of players were:

If an accident takes place, you must report to the insurance company and submit the relevant claim forms. An estimate for repairs /replacements would also be required to submitted.

The documents to be submitted are
- Claims form
-Copy of registration certificate of vehicle and driving license of the driver
- Original / Copy of the insurance policy
-Copy of the estimated cost of repair given by the garage.
- FIR or a police report if the accident is major, or a criminal offence, or if it caused third-party damage or resulted in injuries
- Fire brigade report, if the loss is due to a fire.

Please ensure you follow the given guidelines to get a better deal on your new/renewed motor insurance policy.

- Do not inflate the value of the vehicle in the hope that you would get a higher amount during claims. The Insurance company would pay only the market value and you would be paying premium on a higher amount

- Look at how to earn and enjoy the no-claim-bonus feature. If you have an old vehicle with higher vintage of NCB, try & transfer the same to the new(higher valued) vehicle. This way you would earn more discounts.

No Claim Bonus refers to the discount given by an Insurance Company, in the renewal premium amount, because of no-claims by the car-owner in the previous year. Simply put, if you do not seek any insurance claims on your car, the insurance provider assumes you to be a safer profile and is willing to give you a discount in the following year.

The No-claim-bonus keeps on increasing with each consecutive year of no-claims. It is this aspect of NCB that has been effectively leveraged by Insurance Companies in discouraging small & frequent claims. Many consumers do not put in a claim for expenses related to minor damage(s), because the discount one enjoys is probably much more than the claim amount.

Please note that:

Motor Insurance is probably the only Insurance product which is required by the legal framework of the country. If you own a vehicle, it is mandatory for you to have atleast 3rd party Insurance before you hit the roads in your vehicle.

Till some time back most Motor Insurance policies came at the same price, which meant that there was hardly any reason to compare policies across companies. All this changed in 2007 when the pricing de-regulation was introduced in this sector.

The future would see a lot of action in terms of innovative pricing and product features being introduced to entice the customers- hence the need for a comparison platform like BimaDeals

Health and Motor Insurance are two segments which grew more than 50% in the last fiscal year. These two segments are where the growth was for all Non life insurance companies.The growth in Health was 55% where as in Motor Insurance it was 50%.

Among the companies New India Insurance was leader in Health Insurance with 24.3% market share wherre as Icici was second with 17% market share.

So with the end of 2008 the dynamics of Industry has changed to
Health and Motor Insurance. With the fall of Fire(property) insurance Industry is trying to get aggresive in the above two segments.

When BimaDeals was launched in mid 2007, the online sourcing market for Insurance was very nascent. Internet spends were restricted to campaigns on prominent portals and search engines . This was probably the only online model being leveraged by the Insurance Providers. And in those days, the market for online comparison was almost completely unheard of.

There were a few players who had just launched online comparison and shopping- riding on their broking background.But nothing that would assist Insurance Providers in their current model of sales through telecalling & FOS.

Welcome to BimaDeals- your online partner in Life & Health Insurance. Through our various initiatives we aim to build a virtual community of Insurance Professionals in India. A community which is vibrant and discusses not only the current challenges but also the huge spectrum of opportunities that the Insurance sector provides.

Past editions of Insurer's Circle- our Monthly newsletter:
- July 08: e Sourcing for Insurance comes of age in India
- Sep 08: What Customers Want?

Discuss and share your views:

BimaDeals is the leading online platform for comparing and buying Insurance products. We have active tie-ups with most Insurance providers and this helps you to get to choose the best Insurance products.
Life Insurance - ICICI Prudential, HDFC Standard Life, Kotak Life Insurance, Max New York Life Insurance, LIC, TATA- AIG, Bharti AXA etc

Health Insurance - ICICI Lombard, TATA-AIG General, Bajaj Allianz etc