Serial bomb attacks from Muslim terrorists forces India’s youth to turn to terrorism insurance

THE TELEGRAPH
Young rush for terror cover
– Serial bombings prompt professionals to go for special insurance schemes
ANANYA SENGUPTA

New Delhi, Nov. 9: Young Indian professionals have a new entry on their shopping list — terrorism insurance.

The spate of bombings has led thousands in the 25-35 age group, usually uninterested in life insurance, to buy policies offering special benefits to terror victims in the past few months, insurance officials say.

Agents claim they are being flooded by enquiries about terrorism cover, mostly from people in their 20s and 30s.

Suhasini Sharma, 24, who works with a multinational in Delhi, rushed to change her existing life insurance policy after a relative was hurt in the Connaught Place blast on September 13.

“I could have been among the victims, too. I called my agent to enquire about a terror cover and got one a couple of days ago. Now I know that if I get killed by a bomb, I will leave my family secure.”

Two companies, realising terror sells, tied up in July to launch a standalone one-year policy, offering a Rs 1 lakh benefit for death from an officially declared act of terror. Optima Insurance Brokers Private Limited and New India Assurance say they had 1,000 takers in 48 hours after the Delhi blasts.

Other companies like Tata AIG, Aviva Life Insurance, ICICI, ING Vyasa, Reliance and the LIC are dangling life insurance policies with the double accident benefit scheme, which raises the benefit fourfold in case of unnatural death.

This option, for which one pays extra premium, always covered terrorism but hardly anyone knew or cared, insurance agents say. Now it has become the selling point.

“Earlier, people were not aware of such a cover in LIC policies. We, too, used to make just a passing mention that the double accident benefit covers terrorism. No longer,” said Rajesh Kumar, an insurance agent in Delhi.

Kumar said he had sold 40-45 policies in the past three months to people under 35. An agent in Mumbai claimed to have insured 60 professionals and businessmen aged between 30 and 35 in the past two months, all looking for terror cover.

Delhi-based businessman Rohit Tripathi, 24, said he had just bought the LIC’s Jeevan Mitra Triple Cover policy.

“I asked my agent last month if I was covered for terror attacks. He asked me to take the Triple Cover policy. I am covered for Rs 1 lakh but my family will get Rs 4 lakh if I die in a terror attack,” Tripathi said.

Optima and New India say some 25,000 people countrywide have so far taken their standalone policy, launched through the website http://www.click2insure.com with one lakh policies offered free on a first-come first-serve basis. Of the customers, 15,000 are under 40.

“Just after the Jaipur blasts (in May 2008), we decided to start a low-cost standalone insurance plan just to cover terrorism. That’s how the Free Terrorism Policy was born,” said Rahul Aggarwal, CEO, Optima and http://www.click2insure.in.

“This policy will cost people as little as Rs 100 in annual premium once our free introductory offer winds up.”

The Rs 1-lakh benefit contrasts with the Rs 5-lakh compensation that state governments usually pay for deaths in terror attacks, to which the Centre often adds a comparable amount. The injured usually receive Rs 50,000.

Life insurance policies as a rule do not cover injuries, though some schemes pay a benefit for permanently disabling ones.

Optima’s terrorism policy, which offers no benefits for injuries, does not cover death from any cause or incident that has not been officially recognised as an act of terror by the government or police.