ICICI Pru iProtect Smart Detailed Review

In this blog, we’ll cover a detailed review of ICICI Pru iProtect Smart, which is a popular term insurance plan offered by ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. It is a plain and simple product which offers your family financial protection in case you are no more.

Is ICICI Pru iProtect Smart a good choice for term life insurance? Let’s find out its benefits, pros, and cons.

Let’s find out.

About ICICI Prudential Life

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance started as a joint venture between ICICI Bank and Prudential Corporation Holdings in the year 2001 and began its operations in the same year. It has been in business for more than 2 decades and is one of the leading private life insurers in India.

Claims Settlement at ICICI Pru

Talking about the claim settlement ratio of ICICI Prudential, its last 3 years average comes to 97%. This implies that the insurer settled 970 claims out of every 1000 death claims it received on an average in the last 3 years. This is a decent number but one can argue that ICICI Prudential Life is lagging behind other top life insurers whose claim settlement ratios are much better.

Coming to volume of claim complaints, ICICI Prudential’s last 3 years average comes out to be around 14. The company gets 14 complaints out of every 10000 claims received. This number is a bit on the higher side as other top life insurers perform much better when dealing with claims.

The operational metrics of ICICI Prudential Life do not look great when we compare them with those of other top life insurers. But they are surely better than the industry averages.

ICICI Pru iProtect Smart Term Insurance: Plan Benefits

ICICI Pru iProtect Smart is a decent plan which covers most bases. The base life cover comes with inbuilt terminal illness benefit and waiver of premium on permanent disability. 

Terminal illness benefit automatically accelerates your death benefit in case you are diagnosed with a terminal illness and the benefit is paid to you early while you are still alive. This is a good feature at no extra cost but is also offered by most of the competitors in the market.

There is also an inbuilt feature of waiver of premium on permanent disability. This waives off all your future premiums for all the benefits in case you are diagnosed with permanent disability due to an accident. This feature lacks depth as it does not cover disabilities occurring due illness. 

There is also a smart exit benefit which allows you to close your policy and get all your premiums paid by you returned to you at no extra cost. This feature is only available if you have already completed 25 years and still have at least 5 more years to go in the policy. 

ICICI Pru does not come with other features such as spouse cover option or increasing or top-up cover option. However you have the option to increase your cover on the occurrence of a life event such as marriage or having a baby. 

Rider Benefits 

There are 2 additional benefits which you can consider to add. 

1. Accidental Death Benefit
2. Accelerated Critical Illness Benefit

Accidental death benefit is a great option to enhance your coverage significantly by paying very little extra premium. If you have this benefit added, accidental death benefit is paid to your family in addition to the base death benefit in case of death due to an accident. 

ICICI Prudential Life offers only one variant of critical illness rider along with its term plan which is an accelerated benefit. This CI rider only covers 34 listed critical illnesses. If you opt for this rider, a portion of your death benefit is accelerated and paid early, on the occurrence of any of the 34 listed critical illnesses. This benefit is only to the extent of CI rider benefit. The remaining portion of the death benefit is paid to your family after your demise. This is again a very basic CI rider as it has only one option to choose from, is an accelerated benefit and covers just 34 illnesses. Other life insurers offer better and more comprehensive versions of this.

Is ICICI Pru iProtect Smart Term Insurance Affordable?

If you are getting basis coverage of Rs. 50 Lakh or Rs. 1 Cr, this may not be the cheapest plan in the market. However, if you are looking for a term coverage of Rs. 2 Cr. or more, this plan becomes quite competitive. For certain combinations of age and term, this could even be the cheapest option available.

Should you buy ICICI Pru iProtect Smart?

As we have already seen, this plan does not offer much customisation as add-on benefits offered by the insurer are basic. However, the plan covers most bases well. The plan is affordable if you are looking at coverage of Rs. 2 Cr. or more.

If you can ignore the slightly higher volume of claim complaints faced by ICICI Pru Life Insurance, this plan is good to have if you are looking for basic term cover of Rs. 2 Cr. or more. The life insurer enjoys a good brand reputation and is backed by a large private bank, ICICI Bank Limited.

Summary

ICICI Pru iProtect Smart is a term plan offering death benefit, terminal illness benefit, and disability premium waiver. It lacks protection like spouse cover or increasing benefit but is affordable for high coverage amounts (Rs. 2 Crore+). Consider it if you prioritize basic coverage and affordability for larger sums.