Be calamity ready: Here is how to get home, business, household items, wedding event insured

Natural calamities don't alarm or even warn before hitting our lives. Fani cyclone hit Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal last week and the calamity resulted in life and financial loss. Even the terrorist attack in Sri Lanka took many lives. These incidents again highlight the importance of being ready for emergencies. You can keep you and your family covered by having an insurance policy and remain secured in case of any natural emergency. Tax and Finance expert, Balwant Jain told Zee Business TV, ''You don't need to have any other policy, if you already have a fire policy or home insurance for your business and house. These kinds of policies cover your business or house property from any kind of natural disaster. Now a days, housing societies have an insurance policy for the whole society, one should check with the office bearer if society is insured or not.''

However, the calamity does not only incur losses to a property, it causes severe losses to health and household items as well. People can also have a cover for their valuable household items like expensive paintings, imported items, furniture, gadgets, office machinery etc. While the one who owns multi storey building or bunglow can have a combined insurance cover, that covers property and household items both.  ''Not only for a loss from natural calamity, business owners can have an insurance policy to cover their loss in business too. These policies are called as loss of profits and cover the business from any kind of monetary disruption in future.'' explained Jain. 

Wedding celebration in India is not just an event, it holds really important value in one's life. But you can keep your wedding event covered as it holds a lot of investment. People can have a wedding insurance, that covers the event from any kind of natural calamity or emergency. Most policies define terror incidents as violence, whether actual or threatened, intended to harm human life and property, with economic, political, racial, ethnic or religious interests being the underlying objectives. This also includes any incident that is specifically declared as an act of terrorism by the governments in charge. The expenses related to hospitalisation, emergency evacuation, trip cancellation, missed connection, flight delay and repatriation of remains are paid for as part of the coverage against terror attacks. 

''One should always pay the premium on time and make sure you read all the disclosures and conditions carefully, human life and financial loss is really important and any carelessness should be avoided. Ensure that you keep all documentation when you are making a claim, like you would in other cases. Flight tickets or railway tickets in case of accidents, ownership and other documents, bills of items and so on,'' added Jain. 

Cyclone Fani insurance cover is expected to go beyond Rs 2000 crore. During Kerela floods last year, insurance companies received claims of about Rs 3,200 crore. Insurance claims from natural disasters have seen a big jump in the past five years. Cyclones including Hudhud and Phailin as well as flash floods in Uttarakhand have led to almost Rs 17,000 crore in insurance claims. The claims from global natural catastrophes in 2018 were pegged at $76 billion, according to the Swiss Re sigma report.