Canara HSBC launches Life Insurance Smart Sanchay Plan

Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Company Limited has launched a traditional group protection-cum-savings product by the name of “Smart Sanchay”. 

Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Company Limited is a joint venture between Canara Bank, HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) Holdings Limited and Oriental Bank of Commerce.

Smart Sanchay Plan has been custom-made for the Bancassurance model and is designed for account holders of the distributor banks. All new bank account holders can choose this product. Old account holders can also avail of this opportunity simply by enrolling. Along with fixed returns, the insurance plan provides accident protection and life cover at a low-cost yearly premium as low as Rs. 6,000.

“Smart Sanchay” will be available in the beginning, at all branches of Oriental Bank of Commerce, Canara Bank, South Malabar Gramin Bank, Shreyas Gramin Bank and Pragathi Gramin Bank.

The policy also provides tax benefits to the policyholder under Section 80C and Section 10(10D) of the Income Tax Act.

Insurance cover for alternative treatments still a far dream

Up till now in India, only allopathy medical treatment was covered under health insurance while alternative medicine systems such as ayurvedic and homeopathy were left out. 

Almost 60 percent of registered doctors in India follow alternative systems of medicine. Alternative medicine treatments like homeopathy, Ayurveda, and Acupuncture constitutes a key part of the health care system.

The Insurance Regulatory body-IRDA had given approval to bring alternative treatment regimes under the medical insurance cover. 

Now in papers, many insurers have started furnishing insurance cover to these alternative forms of treatment, particularly Ayurveda. However, unless the insurers are prepared to treat these at par with allopathic medical treatments, it is of not much use.

A major part of insurers is yet to act as per IRDA approval, and they have to prevail over many challenges to bring the alternative medical system under proper medical insurance.

IRDA permits Reliance Capital to sell stake in Reliance Life Insurance

Reliance Capital has obtained in-principle authorization from insurance regulatory body-IRDA for its planned stake sale in Reliance Life Insurance. Reliance Life Insurance is one of India’s largest private Life Insuring Company.

Reliance Capital had signed a definitive agreement with Japan’s Nippon Life to sell 26% stake in Reliance Life in the early part of this year, subject to IRDA authorization. IRDA would grant final approval on receipt of RBI approval.

According to the agreement, Nippon Life will invest a total of Rs. 3,062 crore to get hold of a 26 percent strategic stake in Reliance Life. Nippon Life insurance is the seventh largest life insuring company in the world and the number one private life insurer in Japan and Asia.

Reliance Life Insurance is a subsidiary of Reliance Capital. It started its operations in year 2005 and today is one of the biggest insuring companies in India.

Mahindra Satyam ties up with insurance solution provider iPipeline

Indian IT services provider, Mahindra Satyam has tied-up with US based ‘iPipeline’, a company offering selling, processing and marketing solutions to the insurance, banking and financial services. 

The role of Mahindra Satyam in this partnership will be providing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for fiscal services to the financial and banking customers in India, West Asian and the Asia Pacific markets. iPipeline has partnered with Mahindra Satyam with a view to capture business opportunities in the insurance and financial services markets in Asia. 

On the occasion, Mr Andrea Evans of iPipeline, said,” This partnership with Mahindra Satyam gives us an excellent opportunity to extend the deployment of our CRM for financial services solution to a broad range of banks and financial services companies.” 

Rohit Gandhi, Senior Vice-President - APAC, India, MEA, Mahindra Satyam, said, “ Mahindra Satyam has a strong focus in the banking and financial services sector, and “we plan to actively position iPipeline CRM for Financial Services to our customers and prospects in Asia, especially those focusing on wealth management.”

InsuringIndia.com: the best place to compare insurance policies online

InsuringIndia.com is India’s first multilingual insurance comparison website. The website allows comparison of insurance policies of different insurance companies in all fields such as health, life, motor, travel, art, etc. in ten main Indian languages.

The users can compare insurance quotes of various insurance companies in a very easy way and without any confusion. It is a common phenomenon in online insurance comparison sites, that user gets confused easily; there are no clear-cut instructions, and it become tough for users to compare insurance policies.

At InsuringIndia.com, the user gets free insurance quotes of all insurance companies. The user has to fill basic information and at one click can compare insurance policies easily. The company has also started a new initiative of providing a policy management module ‘Manage My Policy’ in which the user has just to register and fill the details to get timely reminders.