If you have bought an insurance cover for your vehicle, you should make sure that you keep the plan running and pay the premiums when due. This will safeguard your financial security in case of damage due to an accident or in case of theft of the vehicle. Insurance is a mandatory requirement if you own a car; however, several people fail to pay attention to this important aspect. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you should at least get a third party insurance done. Through this, if you meet an accident at least the damages to third party’s property can be compensated. The best thing to do however, is to get a comprehensive cover for your vehicle. This sort of a cover will consist of the damage to your own car as well as to third party vehicle.
In India, the outlook towards insurance is very casual. We either forget to insure or if we are covered we forget to pay the future premiums on time. This is despite the fact that we get numerous reminders when our premium is due. Unfortunately, we keep premiums at the bottom of the list of our priority tasks. This is the reason that time and again we fail to pay the premiums and consequently the policy lapses. Whereas, the fact is that if we buy insurance, we must keep it running till the time we have the car. In case a vehicle insurance plan lapses:
-
The insurance company provides some car insurance grace period when it comes to paying the premiums. For instance, if you do not compensate the premium on time, the company will offer cover for a week or so. But, a delay of more than that can cause the policy lapse.
-
Once a plan lapses, you run the risk of driving the car without cover and can end up with massive losses in case of an accident or theft
-
If your policy lapses, you will still have to pay the same premium most of the time
-
However, the insurance company will inspect the vehicle and take pictures of the car all over again, so as to check for dents or paint loss as well as other issues with the vehicle
-
You will lose No-Claim Bonus
-
You cannot claim insurance for any current complications in the car. That is why, the insurance company takes pictures
-
It usually takes about 7 days from the day of taking the pictures for you to get the renewed copy of your insurance plan
Nowadays, it has turned out to be very easy to keep a track of your premium due dates, particularly when the insurance company reminds you a lot of times of the outstanding date. At the same time, just like you are able to go for online car insurance, you can pay your premiums online too, which makes the procedure very simple.
Also, if you are not happy with your current plan, you can do car insurance comparison online and opt for the plan which suits your requirements. You can use car insurance premium calculator too, to check the premiums offered by different companies.