Horrible experience. Review on Reliance General Insurance

Absolutely horrible customer service. I am not talking about their customer service when you get to use their policy abroad for some medical treatment. Thankfully I had no occasion to utilise their policy. My review is about their processes for extending an existing travel policy.

I had purchased a travel policy from them for covering my travel to the USA. The purchase of the policy was pretty easily achieved online. The trouble starts when your travel plans get altered and you have to get the policy extended. My stay in the US got extended and hence I contacted them for extending the policy.

There are three ways to contact them – email, Indian service centre and online chat.

First I chose the email method. They asked me to fill two forms – travel policy extension request form and good health declaration form. I filled both and sent to them. I got back an email asking me for copies of PAN and Aadhar! This could have been informed to me at the outset. After getting my PAN and Aadhar copies they came back after another two days saying that all the questions had not been answered by me and hence they cannot extend the policy. The travel policy extension request form has some 14 questions to be answered. Question no 14 clearly says that the details under it are to be provided if there is a break in the policy. An example of the questions under this point was “was there any hospitalisation when there was a break in cover”. As my policy had not expired, obviously I did not answer #14. I get back a mail after two days stating that the extension cannot be processed as I had not answered all questions in the form! I wrote back to them explaining that questions under #14 were clearly not applicable to my case. I get back another mail after another two days which repeated verbatim what was there in their previous mail! I wrote again and again after two days another mail from them repeating verbatim what was there in their first mail. Absolutely no reference to the points raised by me! It was as if my mails did not exist!

Next I tried the chat route. The bot gives you some choices but none of them suited my case. I just chose a close enough option. It connected me to a live agent. I typed out my issue to the agent. Soon I got the message “the agent has left the chat”! In comes one more agent after some time to whom I had to repeat the entire story from start, and soon he too left the chat! As I was using my phone for this, I had to type out the entire story again and again. If it were a laptop I could have copied and pasted.

Next I tried a US toll free number given in their policy. Thankfully someone picked up. But he told me that I would have to contact their Mumbai call centre. Now how do I make a call to Mumbai? I had only my Indian number and no roaming. I downloaded a VOIP software, bought some minutes, and called their service centre. They have a senior citizen number. I called that first but no one picked that number. I then called the general number. You are taken to the IVRS system, where you make successive choices. Then it asked me to input my registered telephone number or policy number. I entered the telephone number and got the response “invalid entry”. Next I tried the policy number and again got the response “invalid entry”! One feels so helpless in dealing with this company. How do I get through to them? Finally somehow I managed to talk to a live agent. She asked me to answer questions under #14 also and send the form. When I told her that there has been no break in the policy and hence #14 is not applicable at all, her logic was that I should choose answers applicable to the time before the policy was taken! A very strange logic. How much I tried to explain they were unmoved as a rock and wanted the questions under #14 to be answered.

Finally I just answered these questions(any hospitalisation when there was a break in cover, any treatment/medication/injuries during the time when there was a break in cover) and then the extension of my policy was done! Absolutely HORRIBLE customer service. I would avoid this company like the plague when I next travel abroad.