Max Life Smart Total Elite Protection vs ICICI Prudential iProtect Smart

Claim settlement ratio is perhaps the most important metric to look considering it tells you how many claims an insurance company pays out for every 100 claims they receive. When you average the claim settlement numbers for 3 years and express it as a percentage, you will see that Max Life has a claim settlement ratio of 99.5%, which we believe is a fairly good number. And ICICI Prudential has a claim settlement ratio of 97.52% which is slightly above average. So on this front, Max Life slightly edges ICICI Prudential.

Sometimes you can’t just look at the claim settlement ratio because it can be misleading. For instance, imagine 9 people make claims worth 1 crore each and the 10th person makes a claim totalling 5 crores. The company can simply pay out the smaller claims of 1 crore each and deny the bigger 5 crore claim and still maintain a claim settlement ratio of 90%. So you will need to look at the total amount settled as a percentage of the total value claimed. And when you average this number for 3 years and express it as a percentage, you will see that Max Life has an amount settlement ratio of 95.5% and ICICI Prudential has a amount settlement ratio of 92.1%. These are both pretty good numbers even though there’s a slight difference.

While it’s important to look at the claim and amount settlement ratios, it’s also important to look at the scale of business. Because truth be told, it’s very easy to post 90%+ settlement numbers when you are selling only a few thousand policies and garnering a few hundred crores in premiums as opposed to putting up the same performance while selling hundreds of thousands of policies doing tens of thousands of crores in new business. So it’s important to look at the scale of the business. And when you consider total premiums generated across the last three years and average it across, you will see that ICICI Prudential has generated new business premiums worth ₹17,198 Crore, which we believe is a fairly good number and Max Life has generated new business premiums worth ₹9,296 Crore which is what you would expect from a medium-sized insurer. In summary, ICICI Prudential is clearly bigger than Max Life here.

Max Life received 7.3 complaints while ICICI Prudential received 14.3 complaints for every 10,000 claims registered. You also need to know that Max Life’s numbers are considered fairly decent based on industry standards, while ICICI Prudential’s numbers are below average.

If you’re ever diagnosed with a debilitating illness, you would want your insurance policy to pay a fixed sum so that you can deal with any monetary obligations you may have. This is called a critical illness benefit. And with the two policies in question, it seemsiProtect Smart extends a critical illness rider while Smart Total Elite Protection doesn’t extend this option.

Some insurers will return all your premiums if you forego your policy before maturity, during a period specified by the insurer. In essence, you get all your premiums back, while also being protected under the term plan during this time. And it seems both policies offer this benefit.

Smart Total Elite Protection waives off all future premium payments if you are ever disabled (in an accident) or diagnosed with certain critical illnesses, while iProtect Smart only waives off all future premium payments if you’re disabled (in an accident).

Some policies offer you the option of adding extra protection for accidental deaths. In which case, you get the option of choosing your death and accidental death cover separately. And while we recommend customers choose a comprehensive cover without worrying about the specifics of death precisely, you should find comfort in the fact that both policies extend this option anyway.

Some policies offer you a monthly income or a large lumpsum in the event you are disabled totally for life. However, it seems neither policy extends this benefit.

Some policies will disburse the entire cover amount the moment you are diagnosed with a terminal illness. So even in the absence of death, you can still get the money and use it any way you wish. In this case however, both policies extend the terminal illness benefit.

Some policies automatically increase your cover by a certain amount (usually inflation) to always provide you with the necessary protection. And it’s disappointing to note that neither policy extends this benefit.

Some policies extend the option of increasing your total term cover(by a certain margin) even after you buy the policy. Unfortunately, in this case, neither policy makes this option available.