Complaints: Which life insurer tops the list?

Reliance Life topped the chart of private life insurance companies against which customers have filed largest number of complaints in 2011-12, the government said.

According to the data provided by Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena in the Lok Sabha, as many as 50,807 complaints were reported against Reliance Life in 2011-12, followed by HDFC Standard Life (35,218) and Bajaj Allianz (22,390).

However, all these companies attended to almost all of the complaints in the same year, the data revealed.

The data further showed that a total of 257,313 complaints were against the 23 insurers in 2011-12 of which 256,196 were attended to.

Though the minister did not give the complete list, here are private life insurance companies that top the list of complaints in different segments.

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Death Claims

There were 2,936 complaints related to death claims against Bajaz Allianz followed by HDFC Standard (461) and Tata AIG (395).

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Servicing Complaints

In policy servicing segment, maximum complaints were against HDFC Standard (5,781) followed by Reliance Life (5,251) and Tata AIG (4,264).

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Proposal Processing

As far as proposal processing is concerned, there were 33,847 complaints against Reliance Life and 14,451 against Future Generali.

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Unfair Business Practice

The data further revealed that in the unfair business practice category, largest number of complaints was against HDFC Standard followed by ICICI Prudential and Reliance Life.

Insurance regulator IRDA has a centralised system - integrated Grievance Management System (IGMS) - which creates the central repository of complaints of policyholders against all insurance companies.

"Action, including imposition of penalties and warnings, is taken against the companies where deemed necessary," Meena said.