The Central system of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority that keeps the data of complaints of policy holders against all the insurance companies, for the year ending March 2013, posted a figure of 3.41 lakhs complaints against the life insurance companies. Majority of these complaints were against insurance giant Life Insurance Corporation of India, Birla Sunlife and Bajaj Allianz and were related to issue like unfair business practice, alleged mis-selling by insurance companies etc.
Further the complaint cell stated that most of the complaints (more than 30%) pertained to unfair business practice. Of the total 3.41 lakhs complaints, 168,482 complaints were of unfair trade practices.
The number of complaints that has been received by IRDA during the year 2012-13 is as under:-
Name of the Company
Additional Complaints received compared to previous year
Life Insurance Corporation
> 20,000
Birla Sunlife
>18,000
Bajaj Allianz
>14,000
HDFC
>14,000
Max Life
>5,000
Aegon Religare
>4,000
During the previous year ending March 2012, ICICI Pru had received 19,759 complaints, against SBI Life – 18,681 and against Tata AIA – 11,672 complaints were received. These insurance companies, along with Aviva and Reliance life insurance has witness a significant drop in the number of complaints against them.
Inspite of the increase is number of complaints against the insurance companies; there has been good news that most of the insurance companies have resolved the complaints to the satisfaction of the customers. LIC has resolved around 72,000 complaints, while HDFC Standard Life with over 50,000 complaints, Bajaj Allianz with 37,000, Birla Sunlife and Reliance Life over 30,000 and 21,000 respectively.
