IRDA claim settlement ratio 2017-18.Best term Insurance plans for 2019

IRDA claim settlement ratio 2017-18. What are the best term Insurance plans for 2019?

After, the long wait finally, the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India or IRDA has finally come up with the newest IRDA claim settlement ratio 2017-18 annual report.

Now, the wait is over and today I have chosen to write a blog article on IRDA claim settlement ratio 2017-18 and the Best Term Insurance plans for 2019. 

Yes, the IRDA does publish the annual performance report every year around in the month of January. This usually takes a lot of time due to the compilation of many aspects and numerous key parameters.

So, the annual report for the F.Y 2017-18 has been published by them in the 2nd week of January 2019. I hope many questions have been answered that were asked by my blog readers in my last year’s similar post where I used the annual report of F.Y 2016-17, about the old data that I used there.

So, using this year’s claim settlement ratio and other relevant data, I would analyse the best term insurance plans for 2019.

I reiterate that one should not consider the claim settlement ratio as the one and only crucial factor, it needs to be construed as one of the additional decisive factors.

Most of us want to have the very best thing set up for us and for our family as well. Thus, we do for choosing the best term insurance plans. Before, starting off you may want to browse my previous year’s blog post on Best Term Insurance Plans for 2018.

Why IRDA claim settlement ratio 2017-18 is so important?

Here, you need to know what’s claim settlement ratio. This means how many insurance claims have been settled in a specific financial year against the number of claims filed before the insurance company.

So, it’s indeed very significant for one potential individual who is planning or looking for purchasing insurance, he must also look at the claim settlement ratio along with other facets too.

Let us first learn why the IRDA claim settlement ratio 2017-18 is really important?

Therefore, the claim settlement ratio refers to the number of claims settled against the claims lodged or filed before the insurance company in a particular period.

For example, if ABC insurance company does settle 90 claims in F.Y 2017-18 against the total 100 claims filed, it would be said that the claim settlement ratio stands to 90%.

Thus, it is very important to understand that the more the claim settlement ratio is, the more there is a strong probability of settlement of maximum claims which may include a claim of yours as well.

So, that is the significance of this claim settlement ratio. But this is not the sole decisive factor for deciding or choosing the best term insurance plans for 2019.

You may read the following:

I always prefer plain vanilla term insurance plan over and above traditional life insurance plan. Since I just love to see insurance products as only insurance but not as an investment.

Also, it is not prudent either to choose the return of premium term life insurance products.

Now let’s have a look at the important key element i.e. top 10 lists of highest claim settlement ratio companies for F.Y 2017-18.

List of Top 10 companies having highest IRDA Claim Settlement Ratio 2017-18

Serial No.	Name	No. of Claims Lodged	No. of Claim settled	Claim Settlement Ratio(CSR) %
1	Max Life	10332	10152	98.26
2	LIC of India	739082	724598	98.04
3	Tata AIA	2850	2793	98.00
4	ICICI Prudential Life	11459	11216	97.88
5	HDFC Standard Life	12566	12289	97.80
6	Bharti Axa Life	888	860	96.85
7	Exide Life	3357	3250	96.81
8	SBI Life	18885	18274	96.76
9	DHFL Pramerica Life	592	572	96.62
10	Aditya Birla Sun Life	5491	5292	96.38

Thus, from the above chart you can see that out of the total 24 Life Insurance companies only 14 companies could manage to cross the Claim Settlement Ratio of 95% in 2017-18 as compared to 4 companies who crossed it over 95% in 2016-17.

This looks quite satisfactory that the more and more companies crossing the highest benchmark as compared to previous years.

This may be due to the transparency that is being shown by the insured persons during the policy execution or buying and also the stringent regulations of IRDA and also many reporting standards set by the IRDA.

Just find below the details of total 24 companies at a glance for your ready reference.

To download the IRDA Claim Settlement Ratio 2017-18 just click here

Best term insurance plans for 2019 on the basis of claim settlement ratio(C.S.R) 2017-18:

From the above table, the following companies have managed to retain the top 10 positions in the F.Y 2017-18 on the basis of CSR.

1. Max Life,
2. LIC of India,
3. Tata AIA,
4. ICICI Prudential,
5. HDFC Standard Life,
6. Bharati AXA Life,
7. Exide Life,
8. SBI Life,
9. DHFL Pramerica Life,
10. Aditya Birla Sunlife.

How to choose Best Term Insurance plans for 2019?

Currently, there are 24 numbers of life insurance companies operating in India. All of them do sell Term Insurances in different variety of options covering all of our needs.

Now, the question is comes to your mind that is all of them good or best suited for everyone. The answer is probably no. Now, take a look at the factors that you should consider before buying a term life insurance.

Determinant factors

While buying a term life insurance policy you should consider the following factors.

1. Claim settlement ratio;
2. Low premium with high-risk coverage;
3. Policy features;

Though from the above chart you would find that Tata AIA(CSR 98%) is retaining the top 3 positions out of the best top 10 positions but the total claims filed before them is only 2850 and they settled 2793 policies and rejected only 57 cases.

This implies that their overall business in terms of total customers is yet to grow a lot. But they held top 3 positions due to their immaculate CSR. But they have really performed well in the F.Y to get number 3 positions as compared to the last position of number 8 in F.Y 2016-17.

Now, just take a look at the top positions in terms of average claims paid per customer in 2017-18.

IRDA Claim Settlement per customer for 2017-18 (Data Courtesy IRDA)

Life Insurer	Average Claim settled amount per customer( ₹ Lakh)
Aegon Life	927736
Aviva Life	925000
ICICI Prudential Life	637580
Edelweiss Tokio Life	628333
Canara HSBC OBC Life	616437
Bharti Axa Life	493953
PNB Met Life	482018
Tata AIA Life	472037
Aditya Birla Sun Life	468934
IDBI Federal Life	422753
Kotak Mahindra Life	414787
DHFL Pramerica Life	411014
HDFC Standard Life	392855
Star Union Dai-ichi Life	379214
Max Life	348099
SBI Life	323044
Future Generali Life	284359
India First Life	282718
Shriram Life	276545
Exide Life	237723
Bajaj Allianz Life	236483
Reliance Nippon Life	174839
LIC of India	148324
Sahara Life	97302