There
are different types of
accident covers, accident including some special
types of covers. It was not
until the middle of the nineteenth century that a beginning
was made for insurance against bodily
injury. The earliest
companies to undertake this type of insurance were especially
concerned with railway
accidents. This limitation did
not last song and within
a few year the accident insurance railway accident insurance companies were offering insurance against only death but also
bodily injury from any accidental cause. The first company to sell
accident insurance to those policies was
the one charted in 1848 by the British
Parliament to sell travel insurance to those who travelled by train. The first accident
insurance company of the US the, Travelers insurance company founded by James C batter son of Hartford in 1864,
Connecticut was issuing policies to US railroad passengers.
Nowadays, many institutional
offer Personal Accident policies
as a measure of sales
promotion . These are limited cover accident policies
issue under a blanket cover by the banks or clubs issuing credit credit
cards to the clients. Depending
upon the class of the card , the value of the cover also differs, In
India, many credit cards offer accident
cover to their cardholders . Of late, many marketing
organizations also offer personal
accident policies with certain conditions
. For example if someone purchase
a scooter tyre, the tyre company that
has a tie-up with a general insurance company may offer a personal accident
policy to the buyer of a particular of brand of tyre. This
apart, some TV
apart . Some TV channels
to popularize the channels
promote clubs named offer after the channel and offer free accident
insurance cover to members. In the
United States of America , some publication
offer such covers to their
subscribers and such policies are
called “News paper Policies” If one has to go by the report the “Dhoti
policies” could well be the Indian counter part of the Newspaper Policies
of the USA . It is reported that MCR textiles a dhoti manufacturing company in Erode, Tamil Nadu, had tied up
with ICICI Lombard for the offer of free
personal accident coverage to all
those who buy a Mundu (dhoti) in the State of Kerala. A Novel
promotional method indeed!.
One’s decision to purchase an
insurance because the cover is given as
a free add on to some other primary purchase
or by availing of a service. As
it is said that are no free launches, one should remember that many such free
offers are not really free: they come with various types
of strings attached. Until the time of the opening up to the insurance
to the private sector. The accident insurance policies in India were issued by the state-owned insurance company,. Viz., New India assurance
Company United India insurance Company , Oriental insurance company and Nation al insurance company. In addition to the pure accident policies offered by the nationalized
general insurance company life insurance
policies issued by LIC some of its
select tables contained the accident
insurance benefits as an add-on
benefit or as an in built one. After the
industry opened up many private sector companies like Bajaj Allianz General insurance Co. IFFCO-Tokio General
insurance company , Tata Aig insurance company
, Royal Sundaram General insurance company,. Cholomandalam MS general
insurance company and ICICI Lombard
offer such covers. The terms of offer
and the benefits may very from company to company and therefore the
information, given in this pages is of general nature and not specific to any company or plan.,
sector in
India. RISK GROUPS CATEGORIZATION: In a contract of life insurance , it is possible to decide
the premium based on the mortality group
to which the proponent or the life to be insured belongs . But in a
contract of personal accident insurance, it is difficult to evaluate
the risk factor for each
proponent and fix the premium. For this
purpose, the proponents are grouped into
a different categories. RISK CATEGORY I: This category covers people who are exposed to very few accident due to the nature of their work. For this category the
probabilities of work-related accidents are almost negligible . The groups
includes mainly white collar
workers, managers , doctor, engineers,
financiers , accountants writers, consultants
et al., RISK CATEGORY II: This
category includes drivers licenced to drive
heavy vehicle employees
in a motor garage, including care mechanics, machine operators
workers engaged in the operation of various machines
as a part of their
occupations professional sports person
and athletes, person carrying
cash to different destinations
from an office or an organizations and
vice versa. In additional to the above the group also includes chauffeurs , builder including
contractors and engineering engaged in supervising construction work and person on a
similar footing a as a supervisors without
engaging in manual labour.