My Blog Reader’s perspective on Aegon Life iTerm Insurance Plan & Why he chose iTerm Plan?

Life is full of if’s and but’s. None of us know what might happen even the next minute. If your child, life partner or your parent(s) depend on your income then you need to have a Life Insurance plan with adequate life cover.

Term insurance is the simplest and the most fundamental insurance product. Term insurance plans are designed to ensure that in the event of the policyholder’s death, the family gets the sum assured (the cover amount).

Term plan provides risk coverage for a certain period of time (policy term/duration). If the insured dies during the time period specified in the policy and the policy is active – or in force – then a death benefit will be paid. It is the cheapest form of Life insurance in terms of premium.

Online Term insurance Plans are,

• Cheaper than conventional plans like money back life insurance or endowment plans (or) offline term plans. Online term insurance plans can be 20-40% cheaper than the offline plans.
• The entire application submission process happens online through the company’s website. So, it is hassle free.
• You may not be influenced by an agent/advisor during the buying process.

Ashish Shrivastava, one of my Blog readers have shared his perspective on Aegon Life iTerm Insurance Plan, an online Term Insurance Plan.  The views expressed here, are purely his own, and do not reflect the views of ReLakhs. Thank you dear Ashish for sharing your viewpoint.

Key Features of Aegon Life iTerm Insurance Plan

• Inbuilt Terminal Illness Benefit. On diagnosis of any Terminal Illness, 25% of the base sum assured will be paid (max.of Rs 1 Crore) & the base sum assured will be reduced by an amount equal to the benefit paid under this clause. (Definition of Terminal Illness :  Terminal Illness is defined as an advanced or rapidly progressing incurable & uncorrectable medical condition, which in the opinion of the treating physician is highly likely to lead to death within the next six months.)
• Covers all forms of death, even terrorist attacks. Exclusion : In case of death by suicide during the first policy year, or within one year from the date of reinstatement, no death benefit is payable.
• Life cover till the age of 75 years.

iTerm Plan Riders

You can make your plan more comprehensive by choosing any of the following suitable riders:

Aegon Life AD Rider: This Rider covers accidental death. In case of death due to accident, the cover amount (Sum Assured) under the rider will be paid.

Aegon Life WOP Rider on CI: This Rider covers 4 critical illness conditions : Cancer, Open Chest CABG, first Heart Attack and Stroke. On being diagnosed with any of these 4 critical illnesses, future premiums payable under the plan and riders (if any) are waived while the life cover and other rider cover continue.

Aegon Life iCI Rider:  This rider covers 4 critical illness conditions: Cancer, Open Chest CABG, First Heart Attack and Stroke. The cover amount (Sum Assured) under this rider will be paid on diagnosis of any of these 4 critical illnesses.

Aegon Life Women CI Rider:  Rider covers critical illnesses pertaining to women. On being diagnosed with any of the covered illnesses, a certain percentage of the base plan cover amount (Sum Assured) will be paid. The medical conditions that are covered under this rider are – i) Malignant Cancer of the Female Organs & ii) Birth of child with Congenital Disorders / Surgeries and Pregnancy Complications.

Aegon Life iDisability Rider: This rider pays lump-sum benefit under the rider and also waives off the future premiums payable under the base plan upon permanent disability of the Life Assured due to accident or sickness.

These riders can be attached to a base plan on policy commencement or at any time during the term of the base plan. Please refer to the sales brochure of these riders to understand the terms & conditions before concluding a sale.

Personal buying experience

After doing research for almost 1 year and 3 months, I decided to buy Aegon iTerm plan of Sum assured of Rs 1 crore. The policy tenure is till 75 years. I have also opted for iDisability Rider with Sum Assured of Rs 40 Lakh.

Why I chose Aegon

I preferred Aegon as it is offering the longest policy tenure and free inbuilt terminal illness benefit. Aegon premium is one of the cheapest. Their claim settlement ratio is decent. They are the Winner of E–Business Leader for last 3 years and are the pioneers in the life insurance online space by launching India’s first online term plan.

Read: IRDA’s latest Claim Settlement Ratio 2014-15 data

Why I took risk coverage till 75 years
Though many of my friends (including Sreekanth) suggested to buy a term plan till retirement age, I took term plan till 75 years of my age because:-

1) If I need a Term plan even after 50 or 60 years of my age then buying a new term plan will prove very costly at that point of time.

2) If I take this plan with maximum offered tenure then control will be in my hand to continue or discontinue the policy. If I do not need life cover after my retirement, I can just discontinue paying the policy premiums.

3) If I opt for maximum policy term is also very cheap and there is hardly difference of Rs 800 to Rs 1,000 (which is affordable to me) so it is WIN-WIN condition for me to go with policy tenure of up to 75 years.

Why I opted for iDisability Rider

One of the good things about iDisability rider of Aegon is that it covers disability due to Sickness and Accident. If an insured person suffers from stroke or due to any sickness, and if he/she becomes disable (permanent disability) then the company will pay the rider sum assured amount. It covers both total and partial permanent disability and waives off all the future premiums in case of permanent disability. The policyholder can claim for a maximum of two contingent events and the total payout will be limited to 100% of the Lump-sum Rider Sum Assured chosen at inception.

Premium amount of this rider is very cheap. So for me it’s like an alternate to personal accidental insurance. (I’ll buy PA plan of 10 Lakh to cover my other financial obligations like children education, hospitalization so by doing this I’ll be covering myself for higher amount with lesser premium).

My Buying experience

I started filling up proposal form with the help of Aegon customer support on 15th July 2016 and it took nearly 30 minute to carefully filling up form and before making payment I received proposal form which I filled in my email ID for verifying details of what I filled.

After making the premium payment, the customer dashboard was created automatically. The dashboard has proposal form, payment receipt and benefit illustration.

Dashboard has a provision for scheduling the medicals and uploading the self-attested documents. I scheduled medicals on 17th July 2016 and my medical tests completed on 17th July 2016 by 10:30 AM, which is super impressive.

Then I uploaded self-attested documents along with KYC details by 18th July 2016. Aegon took 13 days for issuing the policy.

Disclaimer: Ashish works as a Team Leader at Persistent Systems Ltd. Neither he nor his family members are associated with Aegon Life. 

ReLakhs.com is not biased towards any insurance company. This post is for information purposes only. This is not a sponsored or paid post. We have not received any monetary benefit for sharing this article.

We suggest our readers to go through our article ”Comparison of Online Term insurance plans”  to have a better understanding about other Term plans as well. You may buy a term plan from any life insurance company that you are comfortable with. Do disclose the required information in the proposal form honestly and accurately. Kindly read and understand the details given in the product brochures, Riders brochures, policy wordings documents etc., before you buy a term plan.

(Image courtesy of fantasista at FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Reference : Plan brochures) (Post published on : 03-August-2016)