Š The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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Journalism of Courage
State-owned general insurers, including New India Assurance (NIA) and United India Insurance (UII), last week rushed to settle the personal accident (PA) claims of all military personnel, including the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and Brigadier LS Lidder within hours after they lost their lives in a tragic helicopter crash in Coonoor.
Chennai-based UII has settled group personal accident (GPA) claims of deceased defence officials, including General Rawat and others, while NIA paid the claim of Brigadier Ladder at the shortest possible time, officials said.
For UII, the crash victims were covered under its State Bank of India (SBI) GPA Policy for account holders and all these claims worth around Rs 30 lakh each were settled in record time of 30 minutes on receipt of documents, a feat never heard of in the industry, sources said. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) is also in the process of settling the claims, said an official.
Brigadier Lidder was covered under a policy issued by the Mumbai Large Corporate Broker Office-2, which covers defence personnel having salary accounts with Axis Bank. âNIA holds our defence personnel on the highest pedestal and this act of settlement of claim is our way of offering deepest respects to the departed soul and support to the family,â said Atul Sahai, CMD, NIA.
âUII settled the GPA claims of all the decorated army and IAF officers including CDS Bipin Rawat in record time post the tragic helicopter crash. They were all covered under our SBI GPA Policy,â said Satyajit Tripathy, CMD, UII.
The SBI Defence Salary Package (DSP) account is meant for the Indian defence personnel of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Indian Coast Guard, Assam Rifles, Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and a Group Accident Policy issued by the UII for this package has provisions to pay an insurance claim of Rs 30 lakh in case of death or total disability and Rs 10 lakh for partial disability of an account holder.
âUpon our enquiries, we received a formal request from our intermediary partner on Friday, requesting for speedy settlement of the claim of Brig. Lidder, one among the unfortunate occupants of the helicopter. Our team immediately sprang into action, obtained minimum mandatory documents required for the bank and expeditiously released the amount of sum insured i.e. Rs 30 lakh within an hour and also ensured that the amount gets credited to their Axis Bank account the same day,â Sahai said.
UII also quickly settled the claims of Squadron Leader Kuldeep Singh, Indian Air Force, Wing Commander Prithvi Singh Chauhan (IAF), Junior Warrant Officer (JWO) Rana Pratap Das (IAF), JWO Pradeep Arrakal (IAF), Naik Jitendra Kumar (Indian Army), Naik Gursewak Singh, and Havaldar Satpal Singh (Indian Army). Group Captain Varun Singh is the lone survivor of the crash and is undergoing treatment in Bengaluru.
