[naveen.raju]

I just wanted to point out my bad experience here, but turns out that there's a scam happening here. I had discussed this casually with our family lawyer and he said that they have received around 6 official complaints in Cochin alone. Customers take the premium, Bajaj Allianz delay in submitting the policy and finally issue the refund (around 3 to 4 weeks, they will be holding customers money. In many cases, they don't issue the refund and customers will have to run behind it). Imagine, if this is the case in Cochin alone (this is just what our lawyer came to know), what would be the case across India. They will be holding crores of money. It's definitely a scam happening. So I just wanted everyone to be aware of this.

Here's my ordeal:

Have been their customer for few years now and it was pretty smooth. But this time, it was horrible.

I started getting spam calls 3 months before the policy end date and the last month, it like numerous calls daily. Even though I have blocked their calls, they call from a new number and their calls are IVR.

Anyhow, here's the case. I get a quote for my Grand i10 and I politely decline their offer stating I got a better offer for XX,XXX and mention the add-ons they offered. The lady (Ms Pooja) quickly asks me to hold and gives a better offer in about 10 secs. I ask her to send me the payment link. Receives the payment link in 1-2 mins, checks the offer and I make the payment. I get the confirmation message from Bajaj, issuing payment provider showing me that the EMI has been accepted etc. I get the trace ID (tracking ID), and it shows that it's been accepted.







Now the tricky part. Every time, I take an insurance, I immediately receive the soft copy. But this time, even after a day, I don't receive any communication except for the successful payment from Bajaj Alliance. I try dropping them a mail, but all their email ids have some technical issue. Say's mail not delivered - See screenshot:





Then some random guy calls me up after 2 days and demand that I need to pay Rs 4000 extra. When I ask him the reason, he makes some story. I had dealt with Ms Pooja during the entire process, who gave me the discounted quote and asked me to pay the premium. I explain the entire conversation to him and ask him to issue the policy.

Then I call up the customer care thrice and explain the issue. All of them raised a complaint and said it will be resolved in 24-48 hours and will treat my case as "urgent". I then call up the customer care in the evening, and they transfer the call to the concerned dept. The dude say that his computer is very slow and ask me to hold for couple of mins (LOL). He confirms that the payment got through and it's been successful and states that they are experiencing some technical issues so the delay in issuing the policy document. When they were behind me before taking up the policy, they simply disappeared as soon as I make the payment. But he assures me that I will receive my policy on 28th March.

28th March - I receive a mail with the following contents.



Thinking that the issue has been resolved, I prepare to take the printout of the policy document. To my surprise, the policy that they sent was last year's policy. What a brilliant mistake. I reply to that mail of their brilliant proof reading skills and copy the mail to all the senior guys out there (they had given me the mail ID's of the senior guys in case I wasn't satisfied with their customer support). Till now no one even bothered to reply to the goof up made by them.



I call up their customer support at night to check on the status. As always, wasted my time to explain the entire episode. They transfer my mail to the concerned department. Again, explained the entire process. Like a pre recorded message, the dude say he will forward my complaint to the concerned team (wasn't he part of the concerned team? I ask him this but say there's a separate team) and I will receive my "policy" in 24-48 hours. Since I have been hearing this for the last 3 days, I tell him that I won't accept this and I need a resolution. Said it's a technical issue and within 1-2 days, I should receive this. I ask him to either give that in writing or transfer my call to his senior. Like expected, they put my call on hold for 15 mins and later drops my call. Such a pathetic customer support. Here's the summary of my time that was wasted talking to a bunch of idiots.



And just few of the service requests that I received (there's a lot more):











29th March - At 10am, I reply to the mail that was sent by an human by the name of "Diksha Maske" who made the wonderful mistake of sending my last years policy with a cc to the "so called senior employees of Bajaj but who doesn't reply to your mail". No reply.!

At 12pm, I receive a reply and again they ask for all the details. I reply with the necessary details with a cc to 8 other "So called senior employees" (new list this time). This screenshot shown above clearly shows that they regularly check their emails. It might be full of such complaints.

Later at night, I call them up. As always, wasted my time explaining my issue to some 4 levels of support executives. One guy in particular, Mr Ganesh was very rude and he hung up on me stating he cannot keep repeating the same thing over again (his only excuse was they need further 48 hours to issue the policy, heir backend team is currently not available and they are facing some technical issue). I call them up again and spoke to Mr Hrishikesh who started saying the same thing. He assured me that he will take up this issue personally and will deliver the policy by 5pm 30th March. My policy expired on 29th March and on asking why they still haven't given me the policy, he say that there's no issue even if the policy is expired. I can show my successful payment receipt in case of any issue which I think is absurd.

30th March - At 11am, I get a call from one guy stating he's been assigned my complaint and the policy will be delivered in couple of hours. Mr Hrishikesh who promised me he would send me the policy document and personally call me to update me. At 6 pm, I call up the customer support and ask them to connect to Mr Hrishikesh. Keeps me on hold for 15 mins and then the dude says he's on a call and he would call me in 1 hour. Even after 2 hours, I don't receive any update and I call them back. Again, the same prerecorded answer that he's busy. Finally, at 9.30 the dude calls me up. Said he was busy trying to "catch" his backend team (Yes, that's the word he used) and he saw they have issued a refund. These guys do not call up the concerned team if there are any customer issues. They just leave a mail. When I asked him for the exact date that I will receive my policy, he says "I cannot commit a date but I will give you an update tomorrow" (The update will be that they have issued a refund - that will take more than 10 days to get processed). These guys play it safe and make sure that they are always on the safe side. Since he said he sent couple of mails to his seniors, I ask him to send a mail with a copy to me. He immediately denied that. Mr Hrishikesh was acting like I was asking him for a loan and expected me to be his slave/servant. When I started the conversation, I told him that I am recording this call.

Here's where something worked in my favor.
Me - I need to know the exact date. I don't want you to update me tomorrow.
Hrishikesh - Sorry sir, I cannot commit on a date. I will provide you an update tomorrow.
Me - The update that you are going to give me tomorrow is that the refund has already been issued. I don't want that after waiting for a week and then waiting for 2 weeks for my refund. I want my policy issued. Tell me, I need to you give me policy tomorrow.
Hrishikesh - No sir. (His attitude changed and his voice was rough).

I kept repeating this and finally he accidently agreed he will send me the policy document tomorrow. He tried to change what he said, but I laughed and said - "This is what I wanted. You confirmed that you will deliver my policy document". I then say "Mr Hrishikesh, hereby confirms that he will send me the policy document on March 31st 2021". And I said I would send this voice clip to some of the top officials at Bajaj Allianz Insurance (I name some 5 guys with their designation, email ids etc). All this time, I was angry and shouting at them, but now when I started laughing he was a bit scared and tried to change what he said. I convey that I got I wanted, and I now I will do the needful. Anyways, he said he would call me tomorrow to update me.

30 mins later, I get a call from a mobile number. It was Mr Jerome (some senior customer service officer - jerome.vincent@bajajallianz.co.in). I remember seeing his name in the long list of emails that I sent. He said he called me after seeing a lot of emails being sent (I have been sending these mails for almost 6 days now).I had sent a mail to the Insurance Grievance officer that I got from the IRDA website. He politely agrees that this is their mistake and he would investigate tomorrow on this and call me at 7pm. I point out it's either the policy or a refund on April 1st (said I cant wait for 10-15 days).

Mr Jerome calls me the next day with another dude Mr Suraj Suryawanshi - Motor Underwriter (suraj.suryawanshi02@bajajallianz.co.in) on the same call. They offer me to issue the policy with the same premium. Since the insurance had expired, they gave me the app for self verification. I get this completed on April 6th 6pm and at 7.30pm I get the payment link. I make the payment at 7.50pm, mails them the screenshot and other details. And then that's it. These guys are very quick in responding to mails that involve payment. It's been two days (April 8th) and I still have no policy and it still shows two EMI's (refund not issued). I mail them (April 8th 10am) the screenshot showing the two set of EMI's and the reason for the delay in issuing the policy.

Even after sending them mails, I get no reply from them. I then send a mail to their Chief Grievance officer (My last mail to them created an impact there and that when Mr Jerome called me at 11pm the same day to take this forward) on 11th April at 10am. At 6pm the same day, I receive a call from Mr Suraj stating that the policy will be issued tomorrow (12th April) as they had some IT issue (that's a big crap as I have been hearing this for over a month). He also assured that the refund issue will be sorted tomorrow and will include their accounts guy in a con-call tomorrow.

Waited for 2 days, as always no update from Mr Suraj. I call him up at night and he comes with many reasons like family emergency etc. I have had enough - I ask him to give me the policy document before midnight and don't want any stupid reason. Later at night, finally he mails me the policy document. After sometime, he calls me and said he will look into the refund status and update me on it. Now that the policy document has been issued, now my plight continues with the refund. After few days, he calls me up and confirms that he will initiate the refund process. Since I knew I would not receive an update from him, I call up the finance provider and check on the refund status. Says they haven't received any sort of refund initiation from Bajaj Allianz (so the scam is really happening. They are now holding my money illegally). I convince the payment provider and finally they were able to cancel the payment.

Having been a customer of Bajaj Allianz for many years now for multiple motor insurances, they still didn't bother to resolve the issue. I have notified IRDA of this scam that's happening.

Please stay away from Bajaj Allianz - Don't waste your money and precious time here. I learned it!

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[vigsom]

In my view, none of the insurance companies is trustworthy, and that is the general state of most service providers today; "We want your money" - this is the punchline.

Bajaj's sales agents are like limpets - they will do everything to put the customer on hold, and somehow get them to buy the policy. Bajaj's other issue is that their Own damage premiums are rather high, and if they feel they've underquoted, they might deliberately delay the issue of the new policy.The highest number of scam calls come from Bajaj Finance and this happens just after a policy is renewed with Bajaj Allainz.

Off topic- I've been buying only Liability Only (Third party) policies with the 7,50,000 rupee cover now - just fulfilling the basic requirements of law. I don't want to give these insurers a penny more. This formula works for me since my vehicles are quite old, and in the unfortunate event of a shunt, I'll view it as hard luck, slog and get the job done myself rather than go with claims redressal and feel shortchanged and stressed.

End of the day, if we have contacts in a company or wherever , anything works. But for the common man, nothing works.

[sandeepmohan]

Jerome Vincent is listed as a Level 3 grievance officer on their website, under the Support section. There is a level 4 that you can text and leave a call too. I feel you need to get on another call with Jerome to find out what is going on and why the delays in refunding your money. I imagine a whole lot of folks are going through this as Bajaj Allianz is quite a known name for insurance in India. I would go to the extent of reporting this to their Ombudsman and Allianz too. This is after all, a partnership with Bajaj.

[avdhesh15]

I've given up buying insurance online and via websites. Had a similar issue couple years back and somehow got my money back using a broker. Now that same broker takes care of everything for me - factory insurance, health insurance, worker compensation, auto insurance etc. Maybe I'm paying 1-2% extra per year. But the service is totally worth it.

[Fiestaboy]

I hope you come out of this issue soon & my humble suggestion would be to go with local Insurance office directly or Insurance agents.

One benefit we can reap with this method is better communication chain in normal times & also when an incident happens & we go for claim.
Though we might pay 1-2% higher, its always worth it.

Note: if you consistently go with same insurance agent/office, they will get reduced Insurance cost by increasing the bonus/discount offered to the customer. I had seen this happen in my father's case.

[roadrunner_nv]

I’ve been a customer of Bajaj Allianz for the last 15 years now and not a single miss. Five claims later, I still believe their insurance services are better than anyone around. Had a terrible claims experience with two of their competitors and decided to stick to Bajaj Allianz.

This could be one of those off incidents that are always around for any company. I remember seeing something around HDFC ergo a few days ago. You can write to their CEO..I think he is pretty active on Twitter

[neil.jericho]

Thanks for sharing Naveen, this is such an awful experience. Its really great that you have listed down the names of the people that you have spoken to and chronicled the exact sequence of events methodically. I hope that Bajaj Allianz gets you the refund quickly and puts an end to this terrible experience.

I have shared your thread on all the motorcycling groups that I am on and I have asked people to avoid Bajaj Allianz. A fellow enthusiast from Bangalore has just shared that he had a similar experience with Bajaj Allianz for his car insurance. He paid for a zero depreciation policy and the company didnt issue the policy. They claimed that there was a technical error and were not able to get him a zero depreciation policy any longer. Since he had booked it through his Amex agent, he was able to get it escalated and he got his refund.

[ashis89]

I have had bad experience with BAGIC too!

To give a short background, I bought a new car in 2019 and got the Bajaj Allianz insurance through the dealer (1 yr OD and 3 yr TP). On the Vahan portal, the 3 yr third party insurance was not reflected. I checked on our forum and got the guidance to write to Bajaj Allianz to update Vahan portal from their end.

Now the struggle starts. I wrote the first email on Jan 10, requesting an update and included all the details. Kept following up and escalating up chain, including higher authorities listed on their website. I also requested a call back in case that would speed up things. Every time, I received a new ticket number from their automated reply mailbox and complete silence.

By Feb 19, some of their staffs took this up with a proper response and SLA. It was finally resolved by March 18.

Originally Posted by roadrunner_nv

This could be one of those off incidents that are always around for any company. I remember seeing something around HDFC ergo a few days ago. You can write to their CEO..I think he is pretty active on Twitter

Can't say about their claim process but their response to any customer request is very tardy.

[tazmaan]

Guys trust me stay away from any product or service of Bajaj. I had a harrowing experience with Bajaj last year during and after lock-down. Even after going all the way up to RBI and PMO nothing happened. More than 3 million Rs of funds were illegal blocked by them. I even wrote several emails to Mr.Bajaj him self.

No one will respond, you will run around in circle, get frustrated and even proper legal/Govt channels of complaints will be ignored.

They closed 3 tokens of my RBI complaint giving false documents saying customer has settled. I have all the proofs, eventually when I sent a legal notice they opened up the communication and I got my funds released.

All this happened when businesses were hit and liquid funds were like oxygen to survive.

Bajaj is a company with no ethics. Don't believe me check their twitter handle Bajaj Finserv / Bajaj housing finance.

[abhaysinha58]

I was using New India Assurance till last year. The agent was my father's friend. I had a couple of issues while using it, as in not a lot of workshops were accepting NIA but he did help with contacting workshops and surveyors. Decided to go with Royal Sundaram then.Now looking at your ordeal and what private insurance companies put you through, I might consider going back to my Father's friend for NIA insurance.

[zensure]

I too had this outrageous experience with Bajaj Allianz in '20 Aug-Sep- only that it was with regard to Health Insurance. Had taken 3 policies for my family and had some issues. Had to cancel within the stipulated 15 days. Mind you I had these policies since 2014! My travails were -
a. After payment policy was not issued for more than 12 days. Endless calls, kept on hold, not answered, finally managed to cancel them.
b. After this - another horrendous journey of getting the refund. Finally, recvd the money with some cuts.
c. Atrocious thing is they had cut some money because, they could not register my request for cancelation on time.

They would give several mail id os senior folks, only that it doesn't work. When I read the experience here, they are like rerun for me. Their mailbox full, system glitch, Covid-19, you name it under the sun, they had all.

Even twitter complaints too don't move them. Have decided not to touch them even with a barge pole.

[ganeshkmr16]

Thank you very much for sharing this here. I'd like to bring to my fellow BHPians notice that this is not happening only for Motor Insurance, but also for Term life Insurance. But the vendor is different this time - HDFC LIFE

Long story short, I chose to purchase Term insurance from HDFC life through policy bazaar. Filled up all the information, paid the policy EMI, submitted all the documents. Then I was redirected to the HDFC site where I was asked 3 questions related to COVID. I answered them as appropriate and Voila, my policy was rejected. Why?

Because I contracted COVID! The highlight is they never asked when it happened for me and what is the status. Right away they rejected it and said policy amount will be REFUNDED IN 15 DAYS!!!

My basic question is if you know you will reject someone if they had contracted COVID, why not ask those questions even before I make a payment? What stops you from saving your time and my time?

Took this to twitter and asked their customer care for a week now, and still they are covering up saying send email, share COVID related documents, what else and what not! You can see the concern in this thread:

https://twitter.com/GaneshK00734908/...48319392296961

So beware if fellow BHPians are looking out for insurance. Devil is always after the payment is done!

[Ragavsr]

Reading your story, I am appalled that you had to waste so much of your time and effort for securing an insurance policy that was paid by you. Don't think I would run behind them with this much effort. People were angry with Tata AIG for refusing to renew a policy which they had all right to do as underwriters.

From my experiences , the regualtors or ombudsman in India is quite useless , be it RBI or IRDAI.
I had made a complaint against Karur Vysya Bank to the RBI ombudsman for charging minimum balance charges in a long format account which I had opened during my college days . The RBI rules explicitly prohibit any charges levied after the balance goes below zero.

Now I get a call from the manager to pay up the charges as cibil score might be afffected. Told them to keep their bull to themselves . Less informed folks who don't know that charges on a savings account can't be created as credit might get scared and pay.

Originally Posted by tazmaan

I have all the proofs, eventually when I sent a legal notice they opened up the communication and I got my funds released.

If the money in question were kept in the form of FDs with Bajaj , then thanks for the heads up. Its down right atrocious and I guess its simply better to stick with bank FDs.

[amvj]

I have not received a hard copy of the Bajaj Allianz Insurance policy document for my dad's scooter. I have sent few mails, calls and then fed up. Every time when I try to contact the support, they ask me to download the soft copy and not they never send the hard copy of the document.