Managing Money With Moneycontrol: Why do you need to have home, car and health insurance cover during monsoon?

Moneycontrol PF team

In this episode of Managing Money with Moneycontrol, we tell you how to insure your house and vehicle from potential damage due to flooding or landslides during monsoons.

In the accompanying video, Manoj Nagpal, Consulting Editor and Founder, Outlook Asia Capital, shares actionable insights on how to successfully get insurance cover for such events.

Here are three insurance covers which one should consider while protecting themselves this monsoon:

Need for an insurance cover during monsoon

The risk of monsoon has increased dramatically over the last five years. Statistically, the risk has increased 3 times because of the erratic monsoon and its increasing intensity. This is primarily because of climatic changes which include factors like global warming, El Nino, etc., which in turn has impacted the South Asian monsoon. The risks that have increased are water-related damages, flooding, health-related issues and natural calamities. These four risks have now increased substantially across South Asia, especially in India. It is imperative that all these risks are covered, especially during the monsoon season. You can do this by taking these three basic covers - a home insurance cover, a health insurance cover and a vehicle insurance cover to cover.

 Car and vehicle insurance

The first risk that most of us face during monsoon is getting our vehicle damaged due to heavy rains. The important thing that one should know is whether our standard motor insurance covers damages related to rain? Firstly, the statistics say that almost 50% of the vehicles do not have proper insurance cover to protect their vehicle. Secondly, the third party insurance does not cover any monsoon-related damages. It is just a basic cover which one takes to get themselves protected from the third party losses. One need to take comprehensive insurance which may include add-ons like engine protection cover, return to insured value and also, there are so many other add-on values present in the market that really help you take the backlash of the monsoon if it all that is there.

Home insurance

This is one of the under-penetrated product for general insurance companies because most people in India do not take home insurance cover. However, this is an incorrect thing to do and one should at least start taking home insurance which will really be helpful in re-building their house if it faces any natural calamity. Generally, there are two kinds of home insurance - one is rebuilding your house when it gets damaged through a natural calamity and the second is insuring your entire goods and all electronic stuff that is there inside your house. However, it is not mandatory to take home insurance in India at present.

Health insurance

In monsoon, the risks of an epidemic like cholera, diarrhea, malaria, dengue increases manifold. Most things are adequately covered if you have taken a health insurance or a medi-claim policy. However, knowing the fact that the cost of these specific diseases - specifically malaria and dengue has increased dramatically in the last few years because of the intensity with the changing climatic conditions one should ideally have a basic health cover and on top of that one should get malaria and dengue cover as an add-on.