In yet another move which highlights that customers or insured interest is fast becoming the number one priority of the Insurance regulator in India, IRDAI, the body as part of the Protection of Policyholders' Interests Regulations of 2017 has emphasized on turnaround timelines in respect of life insurance claim procedure and processing as well as penalty that the insurer will have to bear in case of any violation from the stated rules and stipulated guidelines.

And so in case you as a nominee need to make a life insurance claim on the policy held by some of your relative, you need to duly follow in the right steps with proper documentation such that insurer processes your claim in a timely manner paying you all your dues.

Proper documentation for making a life insurance claim

1. Submit the claim form that can be either downloaded from the insurer's website or obtained from the concerned office.

2. Provide the requisite policy details such as the policy number, date, time and cause of the policyholder, bank account details.

3. You as a nominee need to provide KYC documents

4. In case of natural death of the policyholder, the insurance company also asks for medical records. Also you need to hand over the original policy bond to the insurer.

5. Unnatural death may require you to furnish an FIR copy together with the other reports such as the post mortem report. Death certificate is also to be provided.

On receipt of complete documentation from the nominee's side, the insurer has the duty to process the claim in a month's time and if some enquiry has to be done, a maximum time of 15 days is allowed from the time the claim has been made.

If the need be of further investigation, the maximum time that is allowed to insurers is of 90 days from the date the claim application has been made after which the claim has to be settled in 30 days time.

So, do your bit by submitting all the requiste documents at the earliest and in case the insurance falters it shall pay you an interest amount @ 2% from the date when the last required document was received on the claimed amount.

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