Business Desk, ETV Bharat: Do you find maintaining your insurance policy documents difficult? Do you also scan your policy papers and save PDF files on your computer thinking that’s the best way to avoid theft and loss of your insurance? Wouldn’t you want to have all your policies stored at one central place that can be accessed anytime anywhere without any risk of losing them? If yes, then you should open an Electronic Insurance Account (EIA) now and enjoy its benefits without any additional costs.
Here’s a detailed look at the key features of EIA and why it is a smarter way to store your insurance policies:
What exactly is an Electronic Insurance Account?
An E-Insurance Account is like a repository where you can manage all your life insurance, health insurance or any other insurance policy at one place. All the policies stored in e-insurance accounts are referred to electronic insurance policies.
Basically, an E-Insurance Account is similar to what a demat account is for your shares. Every individual can have just one account and all family members need to have their own accounts.
Why should you have an E-Insurance Account?
-- E-Insurance Account lets you store all your policies in electronic format, thereby saving you from the unnecessary paperwork and also safeguarding you against policy loss or theft.
-- Also, an EIA gives you access to all your policies at a single place anytime within a matter of seconds. This means you can track details of all your policies at one place like various renewal dates, maturity dates, maturity amount etc.
-- Also, the insured person gets a yearly statement of his account with the details of all the insurance policies held by him/her. It makes it easier for monitoring his/her insurance policies.
-- Once you open an E-Insurance Account, you will also receive alerts for policy renewal and premium deadline reminders, helping in avoiding any delays or unwanted policy lapses.
-- E-insurance account also enables you to pay your premium amount online.
-- Updating KYC details gets extremely simple with an E-insurance account. Once you submit KYC documents and hold an e-insurance account, you don’t have to resubmit the KYC details for buying new insurance policies in future. Just mention the E-Insurance account number and the policy will be issued to you.
-- Also, when a change is made in contact details, addresses, etc. for one electronic policy, then other electronic policies in that e-insurance account will automatically pick the modified details.
Can anybody open an E-insurance account?
Yes, anybody can open an E-insurance account free of cost, even if you don’t own any insurance policy.
When buying an online insurance policy later, one can simply insert his/her unique e-insurance account number in their proposal form and send it with a request to issue the policy in electronic format.
Older policies can also be requested to be converted into electronic form free of cost and added to the E-insurance account.
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How to open an E-insurance account?
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has granted the Certificate of Registration to the following four entities to act as 'Insurance Repositories' that are authorized to open E-insurance accounts: NSDL Database Management Ltd, Central Insurance Repository Ltd, Karvy Insurance Repository Ltd and CAMS Repository Services Ltd.
Choose your preferred Insurance Repository, download the account opening form from their website, fill up the form, attach the required self-attested KYC documents, provide contact details and submit the form. Once your submitted application is accepted, an account number along with the login ID and password will be allotted to you.
The form can also be filled at the time of buying a new insurance policy and submitted directly to your insurance company.
Which documents are required for opening an E-Insurance Account?
In order to open an online insurance account, you need is to submit the following:
-- Latest passport size photo
-- A cancelled cheque
-- Any one of the following KYC documents: For Identity Proof- Voter Identity Card, PAN Card or Aadhaar Card.
For Address Proof: Ration Card, Driving License, Aadhaar Card etc.
Date of Birth Document: Ration card, PAN Card, Domicile Certificate, etc.
How to convert existing policies into electronic form?
Once an E-Insurance Account is created, insurance policies can be converted into electronic form.
Fill policy conversion form available on the website of your chosen repository. Please ensure that separate policy conversion forms are filled for insurance policies of different insurance companies.
Submit the policy conversion form at the nearest insurance company branch. Policy conversion form should ideally be submitted to the insurance company whose policy you hold.
However, alternatively you can send the policy conversion form to your repository to convert your policy either via an email or through courier.
Remember, existing physical policy documents are not required to be submitted along with the policy conversion form. Upon receipt of the policy conversion request, the insurance company will credit the policy in your E-Insurance Account. You will receive an SMS and email alert informing credit of the policy to your e-Insurance Account.
