I would like to bring to your notice few facts which you may read , you may act upon it or you may simply forward it or ignore it or if you are powerful and effective , you can choose to bring about necessary changes in the system. God knows what will happen. But I am making an attempt to high light the deficiency of the system .
I am focusing on Public complaints .
Public Grievance Cell or Customer Help cell or Public Help Booth or Complaint cell are constructed in almost all offices but they are not monitored and not kept under surveillance. These ornamental cells are working in various departments /offices/ ministries are acting only as Forwarding Agent. They forward the complaint to department concerned and close the issue. In return the concerned department writes a few stereo type lines to complainant and close the issue.
In fact , staff attending public complaints are more often than not those staff who are rejected or not fit in other departments. Hence they like to close the issue somehow or the other to save their colleagues. Same is the culture prevalent in the office of CVC, CVO or Public Grievance redressal cell . Staff assigned duties to resolve public compliant are more often than not unskilled and unwilled. Same is the position in consumer forums or in office of Ombudsman or Lok Adalat or Audit office where decisions are either not taken or exorbitantly delayed.
Do you Agree with me? If yes, please do something to modify the system and change the prevailing culture.
In the past I wrote many letters about BSNL, PSUs , RAILWAYS and Public Sector Banks .
This time I am focusing the matter to LIC which deal with trillions of rupees invested by crores of insureds . If LIC fails, it will affect crores of Indians . Aggregate of all PSU banks is also less than that of LIC . All money kept with LIC or in Banks (private or government ) are public money. If they fail, loss will occur to common men only.
If LIC do not serve the policy holders well, people of India will go to private insurers or NBCC or other avenues. They have been choosing to private insurers and NBCC for greater gains. It is different that sometimes they may loss their principal amount of investment too.
GOI has assigned the duty to IRDA to ensure best customer service quality and to give relief to common men who are rejected by officials of LIC. But, unfortunately it also appear to act in the same way. Perhaps this office is also manned by retired officials of LIC. I have experienced same inconvenience, discomfort and torture as in case of BSNL I faced and public in general face . I complained to all VIPs and finally got my broadband line disconnected from BSNL and opted for private service provider. This has happened with a lot of others too.
Consumer forum or Ombudsman do not decide the case for years and decades. No hope of justice from there also. Common men like me do not have adequate money to spend in litigation and have patience for years to get justice. Senior citizens in particular loss the zeal of opting litigation for justice.
People of India have blind faith of government owned LIC and LIC should also not betray policy holders . After all it is a matter of trust, if it is lost everything is lost. Thousands of cases are pending in courts of law. Policy holders claim their money first with LIC but denied their right , they knock the doors of court and after decades they get justice. By the time, justice is delivered, the beneficiary of LIC policy goes to heaven. If protectors become destructors, damage is unavoidable, the great writer Munsi Premchand said log ago.
LIC waste public money amounting to crores of rupees in contesting these cases to serve their ego and deny legitimate rights of policy holders on some plea or the other. More than Rs.12000 crore of rupees are unclaimed in LIC books .Hundreds and thousands of claims are pending at LIC in want of positive decision .
Why LIC is not directed to find out real nominee and pay the claim in all unclaimed deposits ? Why do they not take initiative and innovative step to give money to real beneficiaries. Opposite of blessings accrue to LIC from many deprived and rejected persons? After all , a person deposits money with LIC so that after his or her death , it is given to his family member without any painful process.
Otherwise this entire fund should be spent on welfare of poor and downtrodden.
Money spent on court cases should be recovered from LIC staff who committed mistake and caused loss too money and image of LIC in litigation .
Life Insurance Corporation has been mobilising business by paying exorbitant commission to agents but do not serve the insured at the time of claim raised by insured. LIC in this way gives more to agents and more to LIC itself in earning profit but very less to insured from whom they mobilise business.
Agents earn 20 to 40 percent commission in first year of policy and then 5 to 20 percent during entire tenure of policy ranging from 10 to 40 years. On the contrary people who buy policy and invest money do not get return even to the extent of 6 percent after two or three decades.
Do you agree with me?
If yes do something to change this culture.
Agents make contact with a prospective client several times, meet him in his home, teach many plus points of the police hiding negative points . Once they procure the policy , they forget the insured. They however continue to earn commission for years and decades without taking any extra pain during subsequent years.
Do you justify payment of commission for years and decades to agents knowing very well that these agents work a few hours for the first time and then sleep in majority of cases they mobilise. This is because majority of premiums are paid by insured online through internet facility.
If No, then take some effective step to stop such irrational commission to agents and cause loss to policy holder.
There have been great improvement in use of technology in all departments. Banks are serving their clients of in all their branches though the client open account in only one branch . Bank customer open accounts in one bank and get on ATM and he or she can use any ATM of any branch and of any bank.
On the contrary , Agents associated with one branch of LIC can mobilise business all over the country ,but at the time of payment , none of agents help the policy holder and force the insured to contact the issuing branch only.
Do you think that LIC must upgrade its tools, add new technology so that it can serve any customer from any of its office all over the country ?
Why LIC insist for same manual type of paper work and refrain from using technological tools to serve their valued clients?
Why they do not use online tools to pay maturity value to policy holders without asking for torturous paper work and several visits to offices.
Why LIC is not given orders to issue LIC POLICY in DEMAT form only so that its value can be paid on demand directly in the account of policy holders without any risk and repercussions.
Here it is important to say that public servants who are doing service to various companies and government offices are facing frequent transfers . They are posted at different places and they buy LIC policy under the influence of LIC agent at different place of posting. But at the time of maturity, These agents do not come in picture. LIC advises policy holders to get maturity payment from issuing branch after submitting various forms and annexures there.
Here question arise , LIC should be banned and in brief agents should not be allowed to procure insurance business only from a specified command area, say a sub-division or a district .
When branch of LIC do not respond to policy holder of other area, they do not have moral right to procure business from other area and similarly when agents do not serve customers of other area, they do not have moral to seek business from other area.
Similarly public servants including armed forces whose services are subject to transfers should be advised to buy a policy only from their home town .
When premiums can be accepted at any branch or at deposit centers or online , disposal of claims , redressal of public grievances and payment of maturity value can also be made from any of the branch or online through NEFT or other mode of payment which is safe and secure
Here I would like to say that if a branch of LIC does not and cannot attend grievance of other branch of LIC , then they should be restricted to mobilise business only from their command area.
Important question raised here is that an agent who earn commission in hundreds and thousands of rupees for 20 to 30 years of policy tenure without making any extra labour, why he does not serve the policy holder at the time of maturity.
When agents do not bother and do not take any extra pain after sell of a policy in a particular year , there is no justification in paying them commission for entire period of policy ranging from 10 to 40 years.
I am submitting below link to my own case , If if you want to do something , then click on the link given below and try to suggest some effective steps so that LIC stop giving pain to policy holders and make their service comfortable, use friendly and beneficial more to who give business , less to who mobilise business (agents )
Lastly I would like to request authorities concerned to make through investigation on investments made by LIC so that future of policy holders is made more safe and secure. If investment made by LIC are in danger , the fate of entire community of Policy holders will be in danger . Policy holders will meet the same fate as it happens to them when they invest in chit fund companies.
It is praiseworthy that IRDA has now advised LIC to bring down their investment in a company to 15%. It is also praiseworthy that High court on the basis of a PIL issued notice to LIC to justify their investment in ITC . On the one hand government says that smoking is harmful and should not encouraged , on the other the same government forced LIC to buy stake in ITC which produces and sell only tobacco items which are termed as harmful for users and lead to cancerous disease.
LIC should also be advised to come out with its annual financial report, profit and loss account and its investments . If these financial data are made public, experts may make analysis of it and alert Government of India before it is too late. India has seen how American Insurer AIG failed during financial crisis of the year 2008 and USA had to sacrifice a lot in giving them stimulus package.
Even our country has been sacrificing thousands of crores of rupees every year or alternate year in keeping public sector banks in good health .Volume of bad loans in PSU banks has gone beyond control , Image of PSU banks is not as good as that of private banks is. And this has happened only because GOI misused and neglected banks for years and decades in the name of liberalisation ,privatisation and globalisation. Let us save at least LIC from facing similar disaster.
Government of India should also find out whether commission paid by LIC in procurement of Business is justifiable? And if it is justified, why then they find faults in Sahara model of business and that of NBCC or Chit fund companies. In case of Chit fund companies, promoters of the company fly away , in case of NBCC, company gets liquidated and in case of government owned LIC, money is wasted in unremunerative activities, on agents , on staff and finally in investment in weak companies.
Whether establishment cost including staff cost is not rising abnormally?
This should be assessed from justifiable process . LIC is handling trillions of rupees and if quality of investment decisions are not good, it may cause huge loss in near future.
Whether expenses made by LIC in other names are also justifiable and in tune with their business and not more than what private insurers are spending .
I would like to add here that GOI has to be more vigilant and LIC need to be specially audited from all angles because it is the biggest one financial department dealing with highest amount of public money. If adequate control is not applied , some sort of scam may kill the future of millions of insured people.
I once again request you to ensure that Public Grievance Redressal department (active almost in all government sector offices ) start responding in fruitful and customer friendly manner and do not confine themselves to the extent of forwarding agent only.
In private sectors too, there is a system of customer Help centres, they too seek feedback and entertain complaint from their clients. They take clues from such feedback and complaints to find out the erring staff and to make clients happier by serving them well and upto their satisfaction.
The great difference is that prime motto of private sector organisations is to improve their quality of service to attract more and more clients whereas on the contrary the same tool in government owned departments or PSUs is used to cheat customers and protect erring staff of the department and finally to close the case by giving a formal reply .
Will you please understand the spirit of the issue and act suitably to bring about positive changes in the system?
If there is a system of calling 911 in USA for any type of police help, it is really helpful. But in India if a person make a phone call even for police or an ambulance in case of need, he will get no response , only lame excuses for not attending or for making delays.
IN USA , if you make a complain and if it is genuine, USA law imposes heavy penalty to the guilty , but in India such erring staff are awarded in some way or the other.
Why this happens in India ? Why accountability is not fixed on erring officials in LIC or in banks or elsewhere ?
Why protectors working in the name of Customer Help Centre or Public Grievance Redressal system do not work devotedly to give relief to aggrieved persons ?
Why people of India has lost trust on entire system?
Why government offices fail to help common men , why voice of common men is ignored and that of government officials is given more weightage?
What will happen if Courts , called as temple of Justice , do not deliver justice in time?
What will happen if officers posted to give relief to aggrieved persons start flattering and following the line of erring officials only?
What will happen if erring officer is assigned the duty of finding error ?
What will happen if thieves are entrusted the duty of police to find out thief and to punish the culprit?
Above mentioned some questions are important and need to be answered.
God bless all.
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