Birla Sunlife Insurance

I had taken a Birla Sunlife Policy Platinum Plus IV, No 003457745 on 28.10.2009 with an annual premium of Rs 450,000 with sum assured of Rs 2,250,000. All the premium were duly paid. My date of birth is 09.11.1948. Though 61 years old at that time, the main reason of my taking this policy had been the sum assured of Rs 2,250,000.

Every thing went well. Then in Nov 2012, three senior executives of Birla Sunlife , namely Mr Rohit Kumar, the Branch Manager; Mr Rabin Agrawal, the Asstt. Regional Manager and Mr Atul Tomer, the executive officer along with the agent Mr Shailendra Kumar Tandan dropped in at our residence. All these persons had come unsolicited, in fact I had seen all the Birla Sunlife executives for the first time and none of them had made any contacts with me in the past.

The team of 4 persons then opened the discussion, explaining the purpose of their visit. They informed me that my policy was doing exceedingly well. So well that they suggested I should take two more policies which will be automatically funded from the overflowing funds from my existing policy. At 65 years of age, I didn’t want any extra financial burden. When I expressed my apprehensions about the payments of premiums, I was assured by ALL that I need not worry because these would be paid from my accrued fund of the existing Policy which is overflowing with funds.

Subsequently, on their suggestion and assurance as above, I took two policies:
1. BSLI Foresight Plan in the name of my wife, Sunita Puri
2. BSIL Vision LifeIncome 2013 Policy
Until Feb 2016, the premiums against both the above policies were paid through the funds of my policy and I didn’t pay any money from my side (and it never asked for). In March 2016, I was informed that there was not adequate fund in my Policy, so I need to pay Rs 100,000 to make up for the due premium of Rs 300,000. Rs 200,000 would still be managed from my original policy fund. On my inquiring about this, the existing Branch Manager, informed that in the preceding year my policy (and hence the fund against this Policy had not done so well, hence the shortfall). I therefore augmented Rs 200,000 (transferred to my account by BSIL on 11.05.2016) available in my funds with my contribution of Rs 100,000,and the payment of due premium Rs 300,000 was made by me on 17.05.2016.

Since I got suspicious about this sudden turn of events, I kept on asking the Branch executive Mr Atul Tomer. On 27th June 2016, I received a Policy account statement from BSIL. I was shocked to look at the statement which said that my sum assured is ONLY Rs 950,000 against Rs 2,250,000 shown in my policy document. I immediately contacted the Branch Mr Atul Tomer about this anomaly. He admitted that this was an error and he will submit the corrected statement to me, which he never did till date even after several phone calls.

I then mailed my concern to customer service of BSIL. They gave me a totally different view. They informed whatever premiums have been paid against the two new policies (as above) through my so called overflowing funds, have reduced MY sum assured by an equal amount ! This was the first information to me about my reduced sum assured from BSIL, that too after 3 years after I raised my concern,. Even after several mails explaining that primarily I had taken my Premium Plus Policy on account of the sum assured and a repeated assurance that the new policies would be funded from my overflowing funds (obviously meaning that my original policy terms will be protected); their response has been negative, citing some rules.