Why a claim timeline matters, and how to build one
Written for policyholders in India · Last reviewed 2026-10-10
हिन्दी में पढ़ेंThe time limits that matter in an insurance dispute are counted from dated events: an insurer should resolve a complaint within 14 days, and the Insurance Ombudsman can be approached within one year of the insurer's rejection or reply. A timeline is how you find out where you stand — and it is the first thing a reviewer reads.
The dates worth having
Take them from documents rather than memory wherever you can.
- Policy inception
- And every renewal since, for continuous-cover arguments.
- Incident or admission
- When the treatment or loss occurred.
- Claim intimation
- When you told the insurer.
- Documents submitted
- Each submission, separately.
- The insurer's decision
- The date on the letter, and the date you received it.
- Your grievance
- When you complained, and when they replied.
Write it as a stranger would need it
One line per event: the date, what happened, and which document proves it. Anything you cannot source, mark as your own recollection rather than presenting it as a record.
Keep it to one page if you can. A reviewer who can follow the story in two minutes is a reviewer arguing about the substance rather than about the sequence.
What a timeline reveals
Laid out in order, a claim can show things that were invisible while it was happening.
- Where the wait actually sat
- Long gaps show whether the claim was waiting on you, on the hospital, or on the insurer — which decides whose delay it is.
- Which deadlines are running
- The Ombudsman's one-year limit runs from when you receive the insurer's rejection or reply to your complaint — or, if it never replies, from one month after you sent it. Record both the letter's date and the day it reached you.
- Contradictions between documents
- A first-diagnosis date after the policy started is strong evidence against a pre-existing disease ground — but the definition also covers medical advice or treatment within 36 months before the policy began, so check the earlier records too.
- What you were never told
- A gap with no letter in it is itself a fact: a decision that was never communicated is a different complaint from one you disagree with.
Keep it as you go
Add each event when it happens rather than reconstructing months later. Dates recalled from memory are easier to challenge than dates taken from documents.
Read next
- Your claim is taking too long. What you can do.What to do when an insurer neither pays nor rejects: how to chase it on the record, what turnaround expectations exist in India, and when silence becomes a grievance.
- The documents that decide an insurance disputeA checklist of what to collect for a rejected or delayed claim in India, why each document matters, and what to do when one is missing.
- Filing an insurance grievance in IndiaStart with the insurer's grievance officer; then Bima Bharosa, or the Insurance Ombudsman once its conditions are met — and what a complaint should contain.
- Health claim rejected for late intimation or late submission of documentsAnswer a late intimation or late documents rejection: what IRDAI's master circular says, what your policy's deadlines mean, and how to set out the dates.
- Discharge delayed while waiting for the insurer's final approval — what are the rules?IRDAI's rule on final authorisation at discharge: three hours from the hospital's request, who bears extra charges after that, and what to note meanwhile.
- The policyholder is missing — can the family make a life insurance claim?What a family can do when a life policyholder is missing: the seven-year rule of evidence, keeping the policy in force, and what to ask the insurer in writing.