Critical Illness Plus Rider

The company underwriting the policy and paying claims. Distributors and web aggregators sell policies but never carry the risk, so this is the entity whose service and solvency matter.

The Unique Identification Number IRDAI assigns to an approved product. This is the identity key for insurance, the equivalent of a barcode: marketing names change and are reused, the UIN does not.

Whether the product is registered with IRDAI. Anything sold as insurance in India must be, so its absence is a signal to check what is actually being sold.

Whether the policy covers one person or a family under a single sum insured. A family floater shares one amount across everyone, so a single large claim can exhaust the cover for the rest of the year.

The cover amounts the policy can be bought at. It is the ceiling on what the insurer pays in a policy year, before any sub-limits cut it further.

How a claim is paid: a lump sum, a monthly income, or a combination. It decides whether a family receives one large amount to manage or a regular replacement income.

Whether premiums are returned if you outlive a term policy. This costs substantially more for the same cover, since the insurer holds and returns the money rather than pricing pure protection.

The period at the start when only accidents are covered, typically 30 days. Illness claims in this window are declined regardless of what the illness is.

The youngest age the policy can be bought at.

The oldest age at which the policy can be bought. Health cover bought before this age can usually be renewed for life, which is why entry age is worth acting on early.

The age at which cover ends. For term life this is the point the policy stops paying, and choosing it against your dependants' needs matters more than choosing the premium.

Whether a medical examination is required before cover starts. Where it is not, undisclosed conditions are more likely to surface as a dispute at claim time instead.

Until what age the policy can be renewed. Lifelong renewability matters most precisely when cover is hardest to buy fresh, which is at older ages.

How long one policy period runs. Multi-year policies fix the premium for that period and usually carry a discount.

How long premiums are paid for, which can be shorter than the cover period. Limited-pay policies finish paying early while cover continues.

How long after receiving the policy you can cancel it for a refund of premium less expenses. IRDAI mandates a minimum, and it is the window to read the wording properly.

How long after a missed due date the premium can still be paid without losing continuity. Letting it lapse resets the waiting periods you have already served, which is the costly part.

Whether the policy can be moved to another insurer while carrying over the waiting periods already served. IRDAI allows this for health policies at renewal, and it is what stops a switch resetting your cover.

Whether the premium and co-pay depend on the city you live in. Moving from a smaller city to a metro can raise the premium or add a co-pay at renewal.

What the policy never pays for. Reading these is the only way to know what the cover actually is, and the permanent exclusions IRDAI allows are now standardised across insurers.

A link to the full policy wording, the contract that governs every claim. Brochures summarise and simplify; only the wording decides what is paid.

A link to the insurer's brochure. Useful for orientation, but it is a summary and the wording overrides it wherever they differ.

Which version of the policy wording these facts were read from. Insurers revise wordings, so this records exactly which contract was in front of us.