Manish ,
I had applied for health insurance policies for my parents ( mother 53 yrs and father 63 yrs ) . I had chosen Apollo Munich health insurance standard plan for two reasons : 1) Life long renewal 2) No loading in case of claims.
To my utter surprise they refused health insurance of 5 lacs cover to my mother cause she is a housewife . When i asked the call center team the reason for this , they said it was order from top bosses. But when i pointed out that the policy wordings do not mention , being a housewife as an exclusion criteria, the call center executive expressed inability to help me in the matter as these were ” orders from above”.
But he offered me four alternatives 1) take only 3 lacs policy for mother 2) take 5 lacs policy for father , only then wil they give 5 lacs policy for my mother. But unfortunately , since my father is a senior citizen , they could give only two lacs to him. 3) take 3 lacs optima restore policy , which gives double coverage if required , but with exorbitant premiums going to lac rupees annually in higher age slabs and 4) to take 3 lacs policy for mother and 3 lacs critical illness rider . But the critical illness rider required the person to be alive after 30 days of critical illness to claim this benefit ( which is absurd as u can die in 5 min in case of heart attack , and then u cant claim this benefit ).
I requested them to allow me to speak to their seniors , but they refused . Finally , not willing to take this unfair trade practices lightly , i threatened them to complain IRDA , launch an campaign on Facebook and Twitter against the company .
Unbelievably , in 5 minutes, they called me back to say that they will issue my mother policy for 5 lacs. I have currently submitted the documents to the company , and waiting for medical tests for my parents . I will update you , if they actually give us the policy .
When i inquired with the executive who collected the documents , he informed me that my case was made an exception. They still dont issue policies above 3 lacs to housewives.
Also , interestingly , they also refused policies to 3 brothers who were photographers . ( Absurd).
My intention of writing this mail was two fold .
1) To make readers aware that , we can fight injustice and we should fight it.(We r the king)
2) To ask Manish , how can we tackle these unfair trade practices , whom can we complain and stop them from making these autocratic decisions .
Manish , we all need your help to fight these injustice against housewives and photographers (and many others for whom the policy has been refused).
Waiting for your guidance !!!