Which Insurance Company is good?

Every one of us who buy an Insurance policy does so with the hope that his family is financially supported in case of his sudden death. The very basic intention to buy insurance policy is to protect our family.

But what if the Insurance Company rejects the claim made by your family? You paid the premium regularly to the insurance Company through out your life and the insurance company made a handful of profit but now denies paying insurance claim to your family? Off course there may be some errors (intentional & unintentional) from policy holder in some cases but many times Insurance Co play the trick and deny the claim to family.

So, Care should be taken by investors before selecting the Insurance Company. Investors should analyze the past Claim settlement ratio (Number of claims settled compared to number of claims made) of insurance companies which is available on IRDA website.

The below table shows percentage of claims settled compared to number of claims made in 2009 to 2010 :

LIC is the best and ranks first as it has settled 96 % of the claims made.

Insurance Company name	Claim Settelment ratio in %
LIC	96.54
HDFC STD LIFE	91.14
ICICI PRU	90.17
ING VYSYA	89.3
BIRLA SUNLIFE	89.09
RELIANCE LIFE	89.07
BAJAJ ALLIANCE	88.19
AVIVA	87.11
KOTAK	86.97
SBI LIFE	83.27
METLIFE	82.54
TATA AIG	78.17
BHARTI AXA	77.8
MAX NEWYORK LIFE	65.51
SAHARA LIFE	63.06
STAR UNION DAI -ICHI	58.33
INDIA FIRST LIFE	53.85
IDBI FEDERAL	49.52
AEGON RELIGARE	48
DLF REAMERICA	40
SRIRAM	39.54
FUTURE GENERALI	38.85
CANARA HSBC	38.71

Bottom Line: Do not buy cheap or low cost (low premium) insurance schemes suggested by the agents or Relationship managers. Check the credibility of the Insurance Companies before buying insurance schemes.