Sunday, August 18, 2013

To whom sum assured payable

Continuing our discussion of items given in the schedule of a policy we come to the next item ‘To whom sum assured payable?’ The answer to this is given as ‘The proposer or his assigns or nominees under Section 39 of the Insurance Act or Proving Executors or Administrators or other legal representatives who should take out representation to his estate or limited to the moneys payable under this policy from any court of any State or Territory of the Union of India.’ The proposer becomes policyholder (life assured) in most cases. Where proposer purchases a life insurance policy on the life of a minor child the proposer is eligible for all payments during the minority of the life assured. If the policy is conditionally or absolutely assigned to another person the assignee becomes the owner of the policy under Section 38 of the Insurance Act, 1938. Absolute assignee gets policy moneys on maturity of the policy as well as on death of the life assured. Conditional assignee gets death claim where as on maturity of the policy rights are retained by the assignor. If the policy is not assigned, on death of the policyholder policy moneys belong to the legal heirs of the life assured and will be paid to the nominee. There could be cases where a life assured dies, without nominating anybody to receive the death claim or assigning the policy to any one. In such cases the policy moneys belong to the legal heirs of the life assured, who are different persons according to the law pertaining to different religious groups. In such cases an order of the court showing the successors of the deceased is to be submitted to the life insurance company for settling the death claim.

Key words:

Life insurance
Schedule of policy
Policy bond
Sum assured payable to

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