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One of the best ways to evaluate the performance of a life insurance company is to look at how it has fared in terms of settling claim requests of your individual clients especially during tough times like the pandemic.
Between April 2021 and March 2022, when our country was battling with the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, which took many lives, Max Life, Bharti Axa, Exide Life, Aegon Life and Bajaj Allianz were the top five companies in terms of claim settlement ratio.
The claim settlement ratio indicates no. of claims that an insurer has settled compared to no. of requests received during a financial year. This ratio is a measurement used to assess the reliability of an insurance company in paying the claims. A higher ratio indicates that the insurer has performed better in addressing the claims it receives.
IRDAI data shows that Max Life has settled 99.34% of the total individual death claims received during FY 2021-22. The insurer was at the top in claim settlement ranking of individual death claims in the preceding two financial years as well.
Bharti Axa and Exide Life followed Max Life with claim settlement ratio of 99.09% each last financial year. Both the insurers have improved their ranking drastically.
Next in the list were Aegon and Bajaj Allainz with individual death claim settlement ratio of 99.03% and 99.02%, respectively.
LIC India, the biggest life insurance company in India, has settled 98.74% of the total individual death claim requests in FY 2021-22. The individual death claim ratio of LIC India has improved over the years.
The individual death claim settlement ratio of private insurers has also improved to 98.11% in FY 2021-22 from 97.02% in FY 2020-21 and 97.18% in 2019-20.
Individual death claim ratio (Ranking in terms of claim settlement ratio)
In terms of companies who have paid the highest amount from the total sum assured kitty, Aegon Life, Aviva Life and Sahara Life were the top three companies. These companies paid 98.76%, 98.43% and 97.09%, respectively of the total sum assured in FY 2021-22.
Top companies like LIC India, Kotak Life, HDFC, ICICI and Reliance have paid less than 96% of the total claim amount received last year.
Individual Death claim ratio (Ranking in terms of claim amount paid with respect to the total sum assured kitty)
Overall, the life insurance industry has settled 98.64% of the total individual death claim settlement ratio by paying over Rs.45,800 crore in FY 2021-22. Of the total 16.09 lakh claim requests, insurers have settled 15.87 lakh claims and repudiated 12,600 claims with sum assured of Rs.1100 crore.