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Insurance tends to enter our minds only when a crisis reminds us of it — a pandemic, an unexpected loss, or, more recently, the Hong Kong apartment fire.
With southern India now coping with intense rain and flooding, this is the right moment to check whether your home fire (and flood) cover is active, adequate and up to date. The same applies to shops, offices and small establishments.
Start with basics
If you don’t already have a fire policy for your home, make this your first priority. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has created a simple, standardised policy — Bharat Griha Raksha. Every general insurer must offer it in the same format and name it “XYZ General Insurance Company Limited, Bharat Griha Raksha Policy.” Similar standard products exist for small and medium businesses and industrial units too.
What the policy protects
Bharat Griha Raksha is an easy to choose policy with reasonably wide coverage. It covers your building, your contents, or both. General contents include everyday possessions such as furniture and personal items and valuable contents are jewellery or artwork. Owners can insure the building alone or the building plus contents. Tenants can insure contents independently while the owner covers the structure.
The protection offered is broad. It includes fire, explosion or implosion, lightning, earthquake, storms of various kinds, tsunami, flood and inundation, subsidence, landslide, rock slide, bush fire, forest fire, impact damage by external physical objects like vehicles, falling trees or aircraft.
Riot, strikes and malicious damages are also covered as are acts of terrorism and also theft within seven days of any of the above occurrences and caused by them.
Most of these are covered under specified terms and conditions and exceptions are spelt out too.
Each of these comes with defined conditions and exclusions, so a quick read of the policy document is always worthwhile.
How sum insured works
Your home must be insured at the current reconstruction cost, not the market price. Claims are settled on the basis of actual repair or rebuilding bills. Contents are automatically insured for 20% of the building sum insured, with an option to increase this on payment of additional premium. Useful add-ons include cover for loss of rent due to an insured event or rent for alternate accommodation and a personal accident cover for death of ₹5 lakh each for insured and spouse.
It’s affordable
A three-year policy for a ₹10-lakh sum insured costs under ₹6,000. If you’ve taken a home loan, your lender will insist on insurance at least up to his loan amount — a useful reminder that your home deserves full protection, not minimal cover. With extreme weather becoming more frequent, now is the time to ensure your home — your largest asset — is fully safeguarded.
(The writer is a business journalist specialising in insurance & corporate history)
Published – December 08, 2025 06:40 am IST
