Term insurance is that one policy that every family needs to have for their better future. Thanks to the higher sum assured with minimum premiums, term insurance gives you an edge with the uncertainties of life and helps your family to be financially secured even in your absence. Term insurance plays a crucial part when it comes to provide financial security to your family and hence should be bought carefully. When we talk about buying term insurance, there are two ways that it can be done, online or offline.
Let us explore factors affecting both the online and offline means of buying a term insurance plan that will help you make a better and wise decision.
Online Term Insurance |
Offline Term Insurance |
Cost-Effectiveness |
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Online term insurance is much cheaper. As there is no intermediary or agents involved, the overall cost comes out much less as the insurer saves on the commission. |
Offline term insurance plans are sold by agents working for the company. As the agents take care of your application, they in return charge a commission making the overall cost of the term insurance higher. |
Sum Assured |
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Online term insurance offers higher sum assured as it comes with low premium costs and low morality risks depending upon the insurer's age, habits and income. |
Offline term insurance also offers great sum assured but due to the high cost of premiums and agent's commission, people generally go for low sum assured. |
Flexibility |
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Online term insurance plans are hands down much more flexible. You just have to visit the PolicyBazaar website, compare all the companies offering term insurance, choose the best for you and pay the premium with just one click. |
When you buy term insurance offline, the agent of the company visits you in person. It consumes a lot of time and effort and the main drawback is that you cannot compare other company’s policy plans. |
Frauds |
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There are fewer chances of fraud while buying term insurance online. You can read all the terms and conditions related to the plan without any scope of manipulations by any third party. |
Offline, the agent tries to persuade you and influence your decision in his companies favour. He can also manipulate the terms and conditions just to make you buy the term plan. |
Transparency |
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As you read and fill all the documents related to term insurance yourself, there is complete transparency and hence no scope of the fraud. |
Offline term insurance forms are mostly filled by agents who can sometimes mislead or manipulate you as per their own needs. Most of the time you get only the part of the information they want you to have to lead to a lack of transparency. |
Claim settlement ratio |
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While buying the term insurance online, you can easily research the claim settlement ratio of different companies and choose the one which has the highest ratio. |
When you are opting for offline term insurance, the truth about the claim settlement ratio of the company completely depends on the agent and there is no other way to validate the claims. |
Hassle-free |
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Buying online term insurance is completely your burden. You have to fill in all the details and read all the documents carefully before investing. |
Whereas offline, the agent takes care of all the forms and documents. You just have to sit and relax. |
You can choose whether to buy term insurance online or offline depending on your wish completely. These are just some points to give you a better understanding of how the system works. One most important thing that anyone should keep in mind while going for term insurance either online or offline is that never to come under influence of anyone and choose the plan as per one’s own requirement and suitability.
Even though online mode wins over offline mode any day, still you decide to choose a plan wisely following all the pros and cons. However, irrespective of the mode of the plan, it is highly advisable that you declare all the information about your personal and family health history, even if it costs you a little less premium.