Answer Book question
Almost never, for two reasons. It is usually small. one to three times salary. and it vanishes the day you leave the job, which is also the day you may be too ill or too old to buy your own.
Almost never, for two reasons. It is usually small. one to three times salary. and it vanishes the day you leave the job, which is also the day you may be too ill or too old to buy your own.
Anil, 44, has ₹30 lakh group term cover through his IT employer in Technopark. He is comfortable. Then a health scare at 46 leads to a diabetes diagnosis. At 48 the company restructures and he takes a package. His group cover ends with his last working day. When he applies for his own term policy, the insurer loads the premium heavily because of the diabetes. He has gone from "covered" to "expensively covered" at the exact age his children need him most.
Group term insurance is a benefit the employer buys for all employees as a block. You are covered because you are on the payroll, not because you were assessed. That is convenient, but it means the cover is tied to the job, capped at a multiple of salary, and often cannot be converted into an individual policy when you leave. or only at a much higher rate.
The exact sum assured in your group policy. ask HR for the certificate, not the verbal figure Whether it continues during notice period, sabbatical or long leave Whether there is any conversion option on exit, and at what cost Your own health today versus the health you may have at the next job change Whether your family even knows the group policy exists and how to claim it
The moment you most need your own policy is the moment group cover stops. a layoff, a serious illness that forces you to leave, retirement. A personal term policy bought while healthy at 35 stays with you at 55 regardless of employer or health. Group cover should be treated as a bonus, not the foundation.
Gulf employers frequently provide group life cover that is valid only while the visa and employment stand. A Malayali who returns home at 50 after twenty years abroad often arrives with zero life cover and a body that insurers will now assess carefully.
Anil needed roughly ₹1.2 crore of cover by the method on the previous page. At 38 and healthy, a 30-year term policy for that amount might have cost him in the range of ₹15,000–20,000 a year. At 48 with diabetes, the same cover may cost two to three times that, or be declined outright.
If you are within a few years of retirement, have no debt, and your children are independent and earning, the group cover may genuinely be enough for the short remaining window. The urgency is strongest for people in their thirties and forties with dependants.
Get the group policy certificate from HR and note the sum assured and exit terms Buy a personal term policy for the gap while you are still healthy. this week, not after the next medical check-up Tell your spouse where both documents are
How much life insurance do I need? Can an insurer reject me because I have diabetes? Term insurance or savings insurance. which problem does each solve?
Family support · NRIs & returning Malayalis
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