As crime graphs in towns and cities shoot up, consumers are increasingly reaching for electronic gadgets to secure their homes and insurance policies to protect their valuables. And just as one needs to look at the pros and cons of security gadgets, one also needs to read the terms and conditions governing the policy documents and also assess the after-sales service of the insurer to take an informed decision.

Of course, even after buying the policy, one needs to be conscious of the terms so that at no time are they breached, thereby giving the insurer an opportunity to repudiate the claim. One such condition in these policies, for example, is that if you change residence or move the insured goods, you must intimate the insurance company and get an endorsement of the location change duly signed by an official of the company. Policy-holders have failed to get the insured money only because they either did not read or did not follow this condition in the policy document.

Of course, where despite following the policy conditions, the insurer repudiates the claim on some flimsy pretext, you have the consumer courts to seek redress. In fact, in most of the cases that have come up before the apex consumer court, the main contention of the insurer is that there were no signs of thieves breaking into the building. In the case of National Insurance Company vs Kashmir Handicrafts Emporium (RP No 1132 of 2003) this was the focal issue. It was however dismissed by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which pointed out that the jewellery was stolen from the shop at gunpoint and the policy did cover theft following assault or violence or threat to the insured or any of the employees of the insured. But the most important order of the Commission on this issue was delivered in the case of New India Assurance Company vs Sakar Iron Industries. Here, in response to the insurer?s contention that there were no signs of any forcible, violent entry, the Commission referred to the dictionary meaning and said it was characterised by forcible, rapid and often sudden movement, requiring exhibiting of a powerful voluntary exertion. It then pointed to the report of the surveyor which had said that the culprit may have entered the building through a small open gap above the locked gate and said it was thus an unlawful, unnatural entry requiring exercise of force. And that in this case the person gaining entry had to use great physical force to enter through the gap above the door.