Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star

Here is Beshak's Canara HSBC OBC Term Insurance Review! 

Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star Term Plan is a term insurance policy offered by the Canara HSBC OBC company.

When you look forward to finding the perfect term insurance policy, you would mostly select the policy which provides you and your family with various benefits and fits perfectly with your requirements. The Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star Term Plan is one such policy that gives you a lot of customization options for claim payout, limited pay and increasing cover. However, this policy comes with a drawback - the insurer, Canara HSBC OBC, holds a poor track record in terms of claims service experience. This indicates your family is likely to face some hassles during the process of claim settlement.

Here are some of the key benefits and features the Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star has to offer. 

What are the key features of the Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star plan? 

• Life cover Benefit: The Canara HSBC term insurance plan pays an assured sum of money to your family if your death happens during the term of the policy. There is no maturity benefit in this policy - meaning, you don’t get anything back in case you survive the term of the policy. You can claim tax benefits under Sec. 80C of the Income Tax Act with this term insurance policy. 
• Entry age for the policy: This plan allows you to apply for the policy, when your age is at least 18 years and until you’re 65 years old. 
• Increasing Cover: This plan gives you the chance of increasing your cover automatically once you have finalized a suitable sum assured based on your family’s requirements. It allows you to increase your cover by 5% every year with a maximum limit of two times your base cover. 
• Cover Duration: This product provides you the chance to choose a cover up to the age of 99 years - meaning, you can get a cover for your entire life. 
• Limited Pay Option: Getting a certain financial burden off your chest is truly a relief! The Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star plan believes the same. You can opt for the limited pay feature and choose to finish paying off your premiums in larger and early installments in 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 upto 60 years.
• Claim Payout Option: This product allows you to customize how you want your nominee to receive the claim payout. It provides various claim payout options such as -  
  • Lump sum: Under this option, your nominee will receive the entire claim payout at once.
  • Lump-Sum with monthly income: The claim amount will be divided into two - your family will get the partial claim as a lump sum and the other half of the claim will be given to your family in monthly instalments.
  • Monthly income model: With this, the claim amount is paid in monthly instalments. This is a good option if you think your nominee won’t be able to manage a huge amount of money at once. They can use this money to take care of the daily and regular expenses.

What are the riders available with this plan? 

The Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star offers some additional benefits known as riders. Riders available with this plan include - 

• Accidental Death Benefit Rider: This rider provides your family with an additional amount of money in case you die due to an accident. This rider can also be used to improve your overall cover in case you are eligible for a cover that is lower than the cover amount required for your family. 
• Waiver of Premium on Accidental Disability Rider: This is one of the greatest riders and would recommend everyone to buy this in case you are looking forward to purchasing an additional benefit. With this rider, if you get disabled, you will not have to pay any further premiums under your policy and you can retain the cover until the end of the policy term.  

However, it does not offer a critical illness rider and waiver of premium rider on critical illness rider. 

Why should you buy a policy from Canara HSBC OBC company? 

Heres, a review of the past claim experiences with Canara HSBC OBC company which can help you decide better whether or not you purchase a policy from this insurer. 

• Speed of Claim Settlement: Despite holding a poor track record in its purchase and claims experience, the insurer has managed to settle 92.03% of its claims in less than 30 days. This shows that your family’s claims will be settled quickly once they submit all the necessary documents. 
• Online Tracking of Claims: Further, your family will have the option to track their claims online and can also use the toll-free services provided by the company.
• Claim Settlement Ratio: The claim settlement ratio of Canara HSBC OBC is 98.12% and their claim amount settlement ratio is 92.42%.

What are the disadvantages of buying from Canara HSBC OBC?

Just like every product and insurer have their own set of pros and cons which helps you decide better whether or not the plan or insurer meets your requirements, the Canara HSBC OBC also has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the disadvantages of the insurer which can help you decide better. 

• Length of the Claim Form: This insurer's claim form is moderately long with several questions to answer. This indicates that the process of filling the claim form might be a little time consuming.
• Claim Complaints: As per our in-house team's research, we were able to gather that the insurer holds a high number of complaints in terms of its claim experience. 
• Personal Relationship Manager: Many insurers, today, provide a personal relationship manager to assist your nominee during the claims process. Canara HSBC OBC, however, does not provide a personal relationship manager. 
• Home pick-up for claims: The insurer does not provide the option to pick up the documents from home. This means that at the time of making the claim, your family/ nominee will have to personally visit the branch to submit the documents.

How does Canara HSBC OBC respond to its customers? 

Canara HSBC OBC provides its customers with toll-free service and also responds to them via social media platforms such as Twitter. 

• Toll-free Services: Based on our research, we found that the response over toll-free service is quite slow. This can lead to a lot of difficulty for the nominee or family in case they have to clarify some queries. 
• Response over Twitter: As an alternative to clarify any doubts concerning the claim process over toll-free, the family or nominee can reach out to the insurer via Twitter as our research suggests that the company responds quicker over the social media platform. 

Make sure you discuss all the pros and cons of Canara HSBC term insurance including customer services with your family or nominee while buying the term insurance policy so that they don’t hit a roadblock and are aware of the next step in your absence. 

About the insurer- Canara HSBC OBC 

Canara HSBC OBC is a Life Insurance company in India. It offers Term Life Insurance, Traditional Savings, and Unit Linked Insurance Plans. Founded in 2008, it is a joint venture between Canara Bank, HSBC Bank, and Oriental Bank of Commerce. The company is headquartered in Gurugram and has over 11000 branches across India. The CEO/CMD of Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance is Mr. Anuj Mathur. 

Final verdict of Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star Term Plan

Based on the 100+ parameters analyzed by our in-house research team and considering its product benefits, customer service, and claims experience, Canara HSBC OBC iSelect Star Term Plan gets a Beshak⭐Rating of 3.8/5.