Buying Health Insurance From Care Health Insurance? | A Review
Care Insurance (formerly known as Religare Health Insurance Company Limited) provides a variety of insurance products like health insurance, critical illness insurance, personal accident insurance, super top-ups, international travel insurance, maternity insurance to individuals, group health insurance and group personal accident covers to corporates.
They’ve mentioned on their website that their operating philosophy is based on the principle of customer-centricity and their objective is to deliver excellence in customer service, product innovation, and provide value-for-money services to the customers.
How is Care Health Insurance? How customer-centric is the entire experience of buying health insurance from Care Insurance? Let’s find out - in this Beshak Test Drive: Care Health Insurance Review.
Easy to find products 👍
A wide range of insurance products are listed on the Care Insurance website. From health insurance for babies to health insurance for senior citizens, from individual plans to family floaters - all products are arranged in a very systematic and easy-to-find manner.
Policy wordings & brochure 👍
The policy wordings and brochures of the health insurance policies are available right below the details of the plans.
No OTP verification 👍
Some insurance companies and web aggregators have kept OTP verification mandatory if you want to generate a quote on their websites. At Care Insurance, however, OTP verification is not required at all. We were just asked to enter our mobile number and basic details like age, name, pin code - and the quotes were generated.
Quality of advice 👍
The agent gave us in-depth details about the health insurance products we enquired about. He explained the features, riders, benefits of Care Health Insurance policies, etc. properly. He also patiently answered all the questions we asked him about the product.
Smooth payment process 👍
Our payment experience with Care Insurance was very good. The company’s agent guided us at every step and was there till the very end - until our payment got completed. Our policy was issued quickly too. Seconds after we made the payment, we received the policy documents in our mailbox.
Endorsement 👍
Details about endorsement were explained to us in depth by the agent. He told us they have different timeframes for different endorsements. He also told us we could make changes to the policy term within two days after the policy is issued or at the time of renewal of the policy.
Similar to other insurers, at Care Insurance too, a financial endorsement - changing the sum insured, adding riders, etc. can be done only at renewal and a non-financial endorsement - making changes to name, gender, date of birth, address, etc. can be done in the middle of the policy duration as well.
When we told the agent we wanted to change our email ID, he informed us we could do that through the self-help section on the website. He told us we would receive the endorsement copy within 24-48 hours of making the changes. So, we made changes to our email ID through the self-help section. Plus, there was a download option available, through which we downloaded our endorsement copy.
E-insurance account 👍
The agent explained the process of opening the e-insurance account to us in detail. He told us we could opt for the EIA at any time after we make the payment by contacting the company’s customer care.
Claims process explanation 👍
Both the cashless and reimbursement claims process were explained to us. The agent gave us the list of documents that would be needed in case a claim arises in the future and even explained the process of claims for pre and post-hospitalization expenses. He told us that they process the claim within 15-20 working days after receiving all the necessary documents.
Unsolicited calls 👎
Some insurers and aggregators start spamming and chasing you with calls and messages the minute you enter your mobile number on their websites. While we didn’t experience excessive spamming and chasing in this audit, we did receive a few spam calls from the insurance company. In fact, we received two back-to-back calls from the company’s representative right after we made the payment, when we were on a call with the agent.
Proposal form 👎
The proposal form was very short and simple. It was easy to fill too. However, we were asked to fill in our date of birth at multiple places in the form. This was the first time we experienced something like this. Normally, after the basic details like age, name, gender, address, date of birth are filled in a proposal form, no insurer or aggregator asks to fill in the same details again.
Free look period details 👎
Most insurers and aggregators mention details about the free look period right below the details of the insurance products on their website. But free look period details are not mentioned at all on Care Insurance’s website. We had to go through the policy wordings of the plans to know about the free look period.
Policy verification 👎
At the time of purchasing the policy, Care Insurance’s agent had informed us that, after we make the payment, we would receive a verification call from the company to check whether all the details mentioned in the policy are correct.
We, however, did not receive any call from their side in the initial two days. Only when we reminded the agent did we receive the verification call. While it was just a verification call, the lady who had called us was insisting we increase our policy term even after us repeatedly telling her we were not interested.
Cancellation and refund 👎
When we contacted the company’s toll-free to raise a request for cancellation, we were clearly informed that no cancellation cheque would be required for cancelling the policy. When the agent asked us the reason for cancellation, we told him a family member had already taken a policy in our name which we weren’t aware of. The agent then started arguing with us and told us this couldn’t be a reason for cancellation. He told us he wouldn’t be able to help us with the cancellation and asked us to send an email to the company stating the same reason, which we did.
We then received an acknowledgement mail stating a full refund would be credited to our account in 10 days. However, we did not get the full refund that the company had promised - they had deducted 25% of the amount. When we called customer care to find out why this happened, the agent told us our reason did not match the terms and conditions of the policy, and hence, the amount was deducted.
We requested the agent to send us a copy of the document where the terms and conditions were written. However, they did not send us anything. We then decided to send a mail to the CEO and grievance cell of the company - who told us they would look into our matter. After a few days, we received an acknowledgement mail stating our refund would get processed within 14 days. However, even after that, we had to follow up multiple times with the insurance company to get the remaining amount refunded.
From purchase to payment, our experience with Care Insurance was pretty smooth.
- The details about the products and various processes were explained to us properly by the agents. They even guided us throughout the payment process.
- The only hiccup we faced before making the payment was filling the same details repeatedly in the proposal form. Except that, we did not face any difficulties till we made the payment.
Our experience, after we made the payment, was not very good. Three major issues we faced -
- Receiving spam calls from the company’s agents.
- The agents did not pay heed to promised deliverables.
- Going through a lot of hassles to get our refund.
Considering our end-to-end experience with Care Insurance, in our opinion, one major thing the company needs to learn is to keep their word and deliver what they promise to the customers. The company can become truly customer-centric then!
If you liked this Beshak Test Drive: A Review Of Care Health Insurance, do let us know in the comments below.
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I agreed with the Cons section of the article. The agent insisted us to take 2 years term to proceed with the policy purchase. The policy wordings is not elaborate enough. The refund & cancellation process is not smooth. Even after purchasing the policy there was no verification calls. They asked medical records repeatedly through different email ids and there online portal to upload the records is broken. Wish I had gone through this review article before engaging with Care Insurance. Overall, it was disappointing experience.
Hello! Thanks a lot for sharing your experience with us over here.