The Vehicle Insurance Policy (VIP) is taken by most of the people for insurance of their respective vehicle(s) be it for comprehensive coverage or only third party insurance, be it two wheeler, three wheeler, cars or for that matter any kind of vehicle, but just for the ‘sake of’ making Insurance Policy thus not to get entangled in getting issued a penalty by way of traffic challan notice in the absence of valid insurance policy, by traffic authorities, rather than the insurance serving the real purpose for which it is intended. Nowadays, if someone is found driving vehicle without a valid insurance document, the fine amount sometime even run up to the tune of Rs. 10,000, viz., more than the annual premium amount for getting an insurance of vehicle of four wheeler or other big vehicles.
Just like we go for getting the pollution level of our vehicle checked to escape getting punished by way of fine;, similar is the situation in respect of getting insurance policy even. In cases of accidents, particularly which are minor in nature such as resulting in getting dent in one’s vehicle, scratch, breaking of side rear view mirror due to brushing by the fast moving vehicles on either side of the road or getting the glasses of front or tail lights broken owing to sudden application of brake, damage to number plates, etc. to name a few, hardly anyone might be approaching the insurance company from where they got their insurance made due to the time-consuming and strenuous efforts that is required to be made in arranging calling an insurance agent and thus it seems worthwhile and a time-saver to go-in for a mutual settlement between parties on the road itself.
In case of such untoward happening on the road, particularly, if it is a minor one, the insured party hardly tries to get in touch with insurance issuing company for the following reasons: Firstly, it is rather difficult to stop one’s vehicle in the midst of heavy traffic in Delhi roads or for that matter in any of the big cities or even towns and the situation is even more alarming when such accident happens in the already congested fly-overs. Secondly, getting in touch with any insurance company agent at that particular point of time is itself a difficult task as many times one does not get through the line or continuously hear music playing or giving lots of options to choose from mobile keypad before trying to connect to an agent over phone and even if one succeeds in getting connected over telephone with an insurance agent, it is a herculean task to call the insurance agent to the spot to get an assessment of the damage done. Thirdly, the other party involved will neither have patience nor time to wait for the agent to come and carry out his drill. Fourthly, the time required to take the vehicle to the concerned vehicle company’s designated workshop and then follow up on the same as the damage is not rectified in a day or two.
Hence, with no other option left, the party which is at fault is compelled to pay from its pocket to compensate the other party. Here the phenomena of might is right or even muscle power plays a role or even raising voice and the one whose voice is more heavy and commanding gets to win the deal of making or extracting money from the other submissive party. Basically, at that time, a sad feeling comes as to what was the purpose of making insurance at all? Anyhow, by this good gesture between parties, or even sometimes leading to little scuffle resulting in agreeing to go for mutual consent of compensating one another, insurance company benefits by way of saving in millions of rupees when such claims are not made or done by the parties concerned, even though huge amount is spent annually by vehicle owner(s) towards shelling out money towards premium amount on making the insurance or its renewal.
At the same time, it is not always that one can get along with mutual consent as the trouble is more when the case involves a four wheeler and a two wheeler bike and it is almost always that the two wheeler bike rider gets away easily as remarkable damage occurs only to the four wheeler and to get compensation in thousands for damage occurring to the car from a two wheeler rider is a task which is near to impossible one and in such cases except for a couple of exchange of abusing words, one does not get any other respite to ventilate his anger. Similar is the situation when a car gets damaged owing to hit by public transport buses or some trucks. The resultant pain of spending money on repair to the damage caused is added one. Now, day-in-and-day-out the situation is getting worse in the sense that even exchange of abusing words is riskier as such minor scuffle leads to very serious and fatal incidents even.
In case of major accidents, naturally one cannot be expected to shell out thousands of rupees and the option left is just to wait for the insurance official to come to the spot and sometimes if the accident is major naturally the casualty will also be involved so police authorities also need to come in picture. Though lots of money is shelled out at the time of minor accidents and the total paid out of such mutual agreement on roads itself comes to hefty amount in addition to the extra uncalled-for expenditure that one has to bear on repairing the vehicles, yet there is no escape from shelling out nearly Rs. 10,000 annually towards a normal car insurance.
Despite having shelled out so much in instalments on the roads throughout the year, what customer gets while renewing his Insurance Policy is a negligible peanut amount of discount offered by the insurance company in the name of ‘No Claim Bonus’ and the funny part is that many of us feel happy and contended in getting that small amount of discount as No Claim Bonus from the Insurance Company and easily forget the total amount spent towards paying compensation to other party, getting one’s vehicle repaired at personal cost, etc.
