People's anger cannot be predicted when violent protests or riots occur. They could end up damaging vehicles on the road by setting them on fire, throwing stones at them, and flinging them to the ground. Worse is that you cannot foresee such events. One day you wake up and find that your bike has been destroyed in such an event.
Scary, right?
What’s assuring is that you can get insurance cover against riots, which could help you in case your bike gets damaged in such situations.
Bike Insurance for Damages Caused Due to Riots
Comprehensive insurance policies typically cover riot-related damages to your bike. These plans include both— third-party liability insurance and own damage insurance. Riots are considered man-made calamities, and comprehensive insurance policies include damages due to the same.
A comprehensive bike insurance policy also covers damages caused by theft, explosion, and fire or damages caused by natural calamities like floods. You would thus need a comprehensive insurance policy to deal with these unpredictable events.
What are the Important Aspects of Two-wheeler Insurance with Riot Cover?
Understanding relevant aspects can help you choose the right policy for yourself. While buying bike insurance policy, you should also look at how easy it is to claim insurance, as delays can lead to unnecessary stress and loss of time.
Here are the five aspects you should be aware of in case your two-wheeler gets damaged due to riots.
File an FIR
For damages to your bike due to riots, file an FIR, which stands for “First Information Report," at a local police station. This proves that you have filed a case with the police.
Usually, the cops will question you concerning the causes that led to the damage. These questions are to ensure an accurate report filing, which only helps you claim successfully.
Make sure to take a copy of this document with you, as it is required for filing and further processing your bike insurance claim. You can request a copy for free, and in some cases, you can also access your FIR online by putting in the FIR number.
Inform the Insurance Company
The next step is to let the bike insurance company know that your bike has been damaged and that you will be filing an insurance claim. This enables the company to be aware of the damages. It can help you understand the documents you need to submit for filing a claim.
You will be stress-free if a company has a seamless claim-filing process. Hence, before buying a policy, always check the claim procedure. Is it completely online, or do you have to visit their office, what kind of documents does the insurer need, and what is its claim processing rate?
While this is one of the most important aspects of insurance, it is also one of the most overlooked ones. We end up buying whatever is the cheapest in terms of premium, but it is also important to ensure that we can claim insurance easily when the time comes.
List of Insurance Claim Documents
The insurance company could ask you to submit several documents to process your claim. For riots, you typically need to gather the following documents:
- A copy of the FIR
- Bike insurance policy document
- Signed claim form with all the details of the incident
- Supporting evidence about the incident, such as newspaper cutouts, etc.
- Fire brigade or ambulance reports (if any)
- Bike repair bill
Apart from these, your insurance provider might also ask for additional documents. It’s always better to ask them upfront what documents are required, so you have them ready when submitting your claim.
An Active Insurance Policy
This is the most important aspect that your insurance provider will look at. Did the incident occur when your policy was in effect? If your policy has already expired and you have not renewed it, the company can simply reject your insurance claim.
Your insurance policy expiry date is mentioned on your policy document. Many companies send reminders before the expiry date to ensure you get a chance to renew your policy before it expires. Even if they don’t, you can set reminders to check your policies and renew them on time to avoid issues arising because of a lack of the required policy.
Vehicle Inspection
Once you provide the insurance company with the requested documents, it will inspect your vehicle. Typically, a surveyor comes to the accident site and clicks pictures of your damaged vehicle. The surveyor then makes a report and submits it to the company.
Based on this report, the company decides whether to pay you or not and the amount to be paid. If the bike is completely damaged, the surveyor could also mark your vehicle as totalled. In that case, the insurance company could pay you the full sum insured.
While it may be tempting to over-report the damages to extract more money from insurance companies, it is always better not to do so. If the surveyor finds that you’ve artificially tried to damage the vehicle, the insurance company could deny your claim. This could also affect your future insurance premiums with the company.
Conclusion
Riots cannot be predicted in advance. While it may seem unlikely that your bike could get damaged, mishaps are always unpredictable, and when they happen, you are never prepared. You could not only incur severe damages to your bike, but the stress that comes along with it would be intense.
It’s better to have a comprehensive bike insurance policy. You can buy a policy online after comparing several plans.
Also read -
