Motor Insurance Renewal in India

Just a while back I recalled that my car insurance is about to expire in another 3 days which is from Reliance General Insurance. I was expecting some kind of notification from the policy provider to remind me about the expiry date. Reliance has failed miserably on that front. However, I have a two wheeler vehicle insurance from Bajaj Allianz, which does remind me about the policy expiry a month in advance. Since I have very little time left towards the expiration date, thought of utilizing the online renewal methods. Logged on to their site and registered my self online. After registering, logged into my account and tried to link my account with the policy. All the search queries on their site went without any success in finding  the right information. Doesn’t matter how much ever precise info you enter, the search always fails!

Since online software system wasn’t up to my serve my request, picked up my BSNL landline and dialed the Reliance General Insurance toll free number 1-800-3002-8282. Though their IVR is a bit confusing, I managed to reach a human being after a couple of attempts. Even after punching in the policy number initially while trying to reach the customer care rep, he insisted me to shout out the same once again. Soon after that he put me on hold saying that he needs some time to pull out the policy details. Only after a couple of minutes the rep came back alive and asked me to verify with personal details to proceed further. All this was happening without asking about reason for which I had called. When I told him that I was looking for renewing the policy, he suggested me to call them again tomorrow as he was unable to pull my existing policy information. The complained about the systems being non responsive. Since he was of no use to solve my issue, it really made me to give up my hopes on Reliance.

My next thought was to think of a different insurance provider. Since I am already having a two wheeler policy with Bajaj Allianz, tried on their website to transfer my policy altogether from Reliance. Though their site loaded pretty well in no time, it asked for contact information on the first screen. Upon providing that info, on the next screen they gave me a reference number to callback their customer support along with a number of other input fields to key in information regarding my car. I was not successful in filling out the form due to ‘java script’ errors! Reloaded the page, used a different browser and still I was unsuccessful to go past the step # 2. Since these folks also failed miserably with their online software and not any better than Reliance, decided to try my luck by calling them on phone. Called up Bajaj Allianz on 1-800-22-5858. I was able to talk to a human without much hassle. This guy was courteous enough to ask for the reason as to why I was calling them at the very beginning. After briefing him my situation, he suggested me to provide my contact information so that they can call back tomorrow. When I asked him why he can’t service my request, very unwillingly conveyed me that the specific department which takes care of new policies was not working at point of time. It was only 8:30pm when I looked at the clock!

So, the lesson I have learned today is that the Indian companies still have a long way to cater to the wide range of customers. We may be developing the software for rest of the world, but the softwares used by companies in our own country have nothing but flaws! Let me try my luck once again with all possible ways without reaching out physically to their respective office premises.

Update: Read my continuation article at https://mohanbn.com/motor-insurance-in-india-2 to know the loop holes in our system and how the stiff competition in multiplayer maket makes customer a King!