Ahmedabad (PTI): From hotel booking cancellations to loss of baggage, and from accidental death coverage to trip plan withdrawals, insurance companies have received a range of claims from the kin of the Ahmedabad Air India plane tragedy victims.
The incident has triggered claims under various insurance categories like travel, personal accident, and life insurance, including those from Kisan Credit Card holders.
"We have received claims primarily under travel insurance and personal accident insurance products. These include accidental death, trip cancellations, loss of baggage and hotel cancellations.
"At ICICI Lombard, we are working on a priority basis to provide seamless assistance and ensure timely settlement. We remain committed to supporting our policyholders and their families during this difficult time," Priya Deshmukh, Head Health Products, Operations & Services, ICICI Lombard, said in response to a query by PTI.
On June 12, the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner began to lose thrust almost immediately after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport and ploughed into a medical college hostel in Meghaninagar area, killing all but one of the 242 onboard and another 19 on the ground in the deadliest aviation accident in a decade.
Bajaj Allianz General Insurance said it has received claims related to personal accidents and marine cargo.
"We have received three claims related to travel personal accidents coverage and one under marine cargo insurance," Bajaj Allianz General Insurance said in response to a PTI query.
Marine cargo insurance typically covers goods in transit via road, rail, air, sea, or courier.
Personal accident claims have emerged as a significant category, second only to life insurance.
However, most insurers have refrained from disclosing the exact number or details of claims, citing the ongoing process of receiving formal requests from the families of the deceased.
In one notable case, a group personal accident policy covering 4,000 people in Mehsana district resulted in a claim settlement within a week of the crash, a representative of the insurer said.
A New India Assurance official said the company has settled seven claims related to personal accidents and five group personal accident claims.
One claim of Rs 50,000 was availed under the Kisan Credit Card scheme.
Immediately after the accident, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) issued directives to fast-track the settlement of claims.
In a circular dated June 14, the IRDAI asked all insurance companies to submit weekly updates on claims from June 16 onwards and further directed them to appoint nodal officers, waive formalities such as FIRs and postmortem reports, and expedite disbursals under life and personal accident policies.
Company representatives said they have been expediting the claims received from the families. They said several kin are still grappling with the loss and would eventually approach them if there are any claims.
Axis Max Life Insurance COO Manu Lavanya said that under the company's InstaClaim process, "we were able to settle a claim for one of the victims of the tragedy within just three hours, which reflects our focus on empathetic action when it matters most."
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).