Insurers' meet on Mon on claim settlement of J&K flood victims

Heads of four state-owned non-life insurers plan to meet in New Delhi on Monday to discuss how to speed up processing claims of flood victims in Jammu and Kashmir after a Supreme Court order on the same.
"CMDs of all four state-owned general insurance companies will hold an informal meeting in New Delhi on Monday to look into the Supreme Court order and discuss how to go about it," a senior official of a non-life insurance company told PTI requesting anonymity.
Heads of some private sector players may also attend the meeting, he added, without disclosing anything further.
The Supreme Court last Friday directed insurance companies to pay 50 per cent of insured amount for policies above Rs 25 lakh and 95 per cent for policies below Rs 25 lakh as interim relief to people of Jammu and Kashmir who lost their properties in the recent floods.

A bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu refused to interfere with J&K High Court order to companies to pay claims of flood-affected people and rejected their plea seeking one month to carry out the survey before settling the claims.
The companies are gearing up not only to expedite the claim settlement process, but also to liberalise the process of ensuring benefits of insurance policies to customers.
"I am yet to see the findings of the court findings. Still, I can only say that we are on the job as my company has already received 2,500 claims so far, the value of claims for which may run in Rs 300 crore. A few more claims are expected to come, still they will not be more than Rs 25 crore in value," United India Insurance Chairman and Managing Director Milind Kharat told PTI.

"We have already settled 200 out of 300 claims as received by us until now. We have got 35 surveyors in the flood-hit areas of the state and a deputy general manager has been deputed to Srinagar to expedite the process of claim settlement," Kharat said.