Travel insurance in India, and globally, has breached a new benchmark, which would be hard to replicate anywhere else. 163 year old Indian Railways has decided to provide travel insurance of Rs 10 lakh, only for 1 paisa for all passengers.
All passengers need to do is tick mark the insurance option while booking a ticket – either online or offline. Earlier, only online ticket bookings had the option of travel insurance, but after Aadhaar Card based ticket bookings, now offline ticket bookings can also have dirt cheap travel insurance.
This special offer has been launched for Diwali festive period, and has already started effective October 7th; and will be continued will October 31, 2016. All rail bookings made within this period would be eligible for this special scheme of 1 paisa travel insurance.
IRCTC Chairman and Managing Director Dr. A K Manocha said, “We have decided to implement the reduced price for the optional travel insurance scheme with immediate effect. It is a special promotional measure and the idea is to facilitate more and more rail travellers avail this scheme.”
What Is Included In The Travel Insurance by IRCTC?
Once a passenger opts for this special insurance for 1 paisa, then the following would be provided under the scheme:
- Rs 10 lakh compensation in case of death or total disability for the passenger and family members
- Rs 7.5 lakh compensation in case of partial disability
- Upto Rs 2 lakh for covering hospital expenses
Rs 10,000 for carrying mortal remains in the event of death during a train accident; or for treatment of injury or towards any ‘untoward incident’ (which includes terrorist attacks, robbery, shoot out, arson, short termination of the journey, diverted route and Vikalp routes)
Note here, that the insurance policy is activated as soon as the option is ticked at the time of booking, and no documents are required for verification of the same. Once the insurance is activated, the insured person gets a SMS/email confirming the insurance policy, and a link to update nomination details, which is used by default for next bookings (unless changed)
And, the insurance only covers all confirmed and RAC tickets; Wait Listed tickets are not covered. Besides, children below 5 years of age and foreign citizens are also not covered in this special scheme.
Travel insurance from Indian Railways is being provided by IRCTC in partnership with ICICI Lombard General Insurance, Royal Sundaram General Insurance and Shriram General Insurance, who were selected by bidding process. In case of death of any insured passenger, 100% of the claim would be provided the insurance company.
As of now, more than a crore passengers have opted for travel insurance, by paying 92 paisa per trip. Earlier, we had speculated that Rs 2 would be the cost of travel insurance in trains.
As per senior officials, the cost of 92 paisa has been dropped to 1 paisa to create more awareness about travel insurance. After the period of special scheme is over, Indian Railways can introduce a revised price for insurance.