Most Indian banks offer a complimentary personal accident or death insurance cover with their debit cards. Not many people know about it. This cover can range from Rs 50,000 to even Rs 2 lakh, commonly tied to specific cards like RuPay Platinum accounts.
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Customers usually get an accidental death, permanent total disability cover among others, depending on the card variants. To claim such a cover, there are some common requirements. These include an “active” debit card, with a transaction done typically 30 to 90 days prior to the accident. There could be a claim deadline, depending on the bank's rules. As a customer, you should check these terms with your bank to ensure that you can use it during a time of need.
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For example:
SBI debit cards offer a range of built-in insurance covers for their customers. The insurance is applicable across most of its debit card variants, ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 50 lakh. The cover types include: Personal Accidental Insurance (Death) Non-Air and Personal Air Accidental Insurance (Death).
According to the SBI website, the cover is not available on VISA, Mastercard Global, Classic and Virtual variants.
Similarly, HDFC Bank offers “Personal Accidental Death Cover” on its range of debit card variants. For instance, HDFC Bank offers an accidental air insurance cover of up to Rs 3 crore on eligible international air tickets purchased using its Platinum Debit Cards. The benefit is available to holders of Classic, Preferred, Imperia, Platinum, Vishesh and MoneyBack debit cards.
How To Claim Insurance:
While documents and procedure requirements can vary by lenders, most banks follow a standard process:
According to HDFC Bank's rules: “In order to claim the Personal Accident Death Cover, the claimant (nominee of the customer's account / legal heir) should submit the below-mentioned documents within one month of Cardholder's death, at any nearest HDFC Bank branch.”
Key documents needed:
- Claim form/ Request letter from the nominee of the account/ legal heir
- Death summary from the hospital. (if cardholder admitted to hospital)
- Postmortem Report
- Death Certificate issued by municipal authorities.
- Final police inspection report.
- Bank Statement, 1 year prior to date of loss (1 year in case of platinum & 6 months in case of gold cards)
- Nominee details of the cardholder, KYC, NEFT and other details.
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