Life Insurance Death Claim
The sum assured paid to the nominee on the death of the life assured, under a term, endowment or money-back policy.
Also calledTerm Insurance Claim · Endowment Claim · Nominee Claim
In shortA life (death claim) needs 10 documents, and the ground insurers most often rely on to reduce or refuse it is this: non-disclosure at proposal, which is the ground almost every early claim is investigated on.
First thing, todayTell the insurer as soon as the death certificate can be applied for, and keep the policy documents and the premium record together.
- Tell the insurer now, not after the assessment.
- Pre-authorisation, or intimation before a planned admission, and within the hours the policy allows after an emergency one.
- Every document within the time the insurer asks for it.
When you would claim
- Death of the life assured, from any cause the policy covers
- Death within the first years, where the claim is investigated
- An accidental death benefit under a rider
- A claim where the nomination is out of date or disputed
What insurers most often rely on
- Non-disclosure at proposal, which is the ground almost every early claim is investigated on
- Policy lapsed for non-payment, or in a grace period nobody tracked
- Age proof not accepted, where the age at entry was misstated
- Suicide inside the period the policy excludes it for
- Nomination out of date, which delays the payment rather than defeating the claim
A ground is not a verdict. Most of these are questions about what was written on a proposal form years ago, and after three years the insurer is very largely out of time to ask them.
The documents
nothing here is urgent, and all of it is exact10 items, and none of them is in a hurry. What a life claim turns on is that each one is exact and consistent with the last: one date of birth, one spelling of a name, one address.
- Claim form signed by the nominee
- Original policy document, or a declaration where it is lost
- Death certificate issued by the municipal authority
- Nominee's identity proof and relationship proof
- Medical records, where death followed an illness
- FIR, post-mortem and police report, where death was unnatural
- Employer's certificate or the last medical attendant's certificate
- Cancelled cheque and bank details of the nominee, for the NEFT payment
- Details of any other insurance covering the same life
- The sum assured claimed, with any bonus, rider or accident benefit set out separately
Next
Cashless Health Claim Process: What to Do, and what it shares with this
The cashless procedure is the one to open, and it holds here even where no hospital is involved: tell the insurer inside the hours the policy allows, keep every original that is handed to you, and never let a discharge or a settlement happen before the outstanding query has been answered in writing.
The sum assured is the sum assured
Nothing is averaged, nothing is depreciated and nothing is assessed. What is paid is the sum assured plus whatever bonus or rider attaches to it. What a life claim turns on instead is disclosure, and the three years after which the policy can no longer be questioned on it.
Filed under: Health, life and accident · Illness, hospital and life
Claims that sit next to this one
the same life, on another policyGroup Term Life
the same claim, on an employer's policy
Critical Illness
a payout while the person is alive
Personal Accident
death by accident, on another policy
Claim on a policy of somebody who has died, and the questions started? Report a loss or call 92514 56334.
Life Insurance Death Claim, Claims Desk by RFS, https://claimsdesk.in/claims/life-death-claim. Checked 13 September 2026.
Quote it, link to it, or reproduce it with the address attached. If you are writing about a claim and need the rule behind a line here, the desk will point you at the source: press and citation.