"Enjoy complete peace of mind whether you are at home or away", claim insurance companies urging you to take a home insurance policy. Their advertisements state home insurance plans provide complete protection to practically everything in your home - furniture, fittings, electrical and electronic items, jewellery, silver articles and crystal wares. You also have the option of insuring your building as well. You can be rest assured that your home is safeguarded from risks, including fire and allied perils, earthquake, terrorism, burglary and break-in.
Sadly, however, the ground reality is quite different. No one ever bothers to read the numerous clauses of the policy document which, if read between the lines, will safeguard not the insured but only those of the company. Every home insurance covers household assets, at least, against larceny, theft and burglary. However, when such an event ever occurs, the insured immediately rushes to the company claiming the loss of his assets only to be rejected.
Surinder Singh Chauhan, a practising advocate in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, got his household articles, including jewellery and other valuables, insured with the United India Insurance Company against the risk of theft. The household goods and other valuable articles worth Rs 27,400 were stolen by his domestic servant Saraswati Devi alias Bijli. When he claimed the loss, a surveyor was appointed to conduct spot survey. Finally, the company rejected his claim.
Chauhan filed a complaint with the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Solan that was dismissed. Subsequently, he appealed to the State Commission in Shimla. The insurance company argued insurance policy had an exception clause which excluded its liability in respect of loss or damage to the contents contained in the insured premises if the loss or damage by burglary or break-in takes place "where any employee of the insured or member of the insured's family is concerned as principal or accessory". Having agreed to the exception carved out in respect of loss or damage to the household goods stolen by an employee of the insured, the Commission concluded that the company was fully justified in rejecting Chauhan's claim.
As we all know, in majority of cases of break-ins and theft, domestic servants are involved. Either they themselves steal the articles or help, in some manner or the other, outsiders who indulge in the act of theft or burglary. The Commission further held in the above case that "in ordinary parlance, an employee would always include a domestic servant".
In light of the above-mentioned vase, one would think whether it is worth taking an insurance policy covering theft of household goods when majority of such incidents take place with connivance of domestic servants employed by the insured? The need of the hour is to introduce home insurance policies covering comprehensively all risks rather than getting out of the liability by resorting to more and more exclusion clauses.
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