HDFC ERGO asked to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation over denying insurance

HYDERABAD: HDFC ERGO General Insurance Limited was asked by the Telangana consumer court to pay Rs 1,00,000 as compensation, pay the insured amount of Rs 10 lakh and Rs 10,000 as litigation to a woman hailing from Malkajgiri.

Thamma Chandrasekhar Reddy, who took a personal accident policy from HDFC ERGO in 2014, died in a road accident in July 2019. The bereaved family, Thamma Sunitha Rani and her two children, were entitled to receive a sum of Rs 10 lakhs by HDFC ERGO Insurance after the death of Thamma Chandrasekhar Reddy.

The family presented all documents, including his death certificate and medical expenses, to the insurance company while claiming the insurance amount. Reportedly, they incurred Rs 8 lakh for his treatment.

However, the insurance company, in 2020, refused to pay the insurance amount. They said that material facts were not presented by the policy holder while taking the policy. In a case hearing in 2022, the insurance company said that T Chandrasekhar Reddy hid the fact that he had epilepsy. Therefore, HDFC ERGO claimed that the termination of policy was “legal and justified.”

In the judgement passed by the District Consumer Dispute Forum in Hyderabad, the court mentioned that the cause of the death nor the cause of occurance of the accident was epilepsy and that the disease was nowhere in connection to the policy. The court said that the complainants, who were the family of Thamma Chandraekhar, were entitled to receive the insured amount. The court, considering the mental agony caused to the family, ordered that HDFC ERGO General Insurance pay a compensation to the tune of Rs 1 lakh and a litigation of Rs 10,000.