Claim rejected because my policy had lapsed or the renewal was late (grace period)

For health policies the grace period is 15 days if you pay monthly and 30 days otherwise, and renewing within it keeps your waiting-period and other credits. But IRDAI's rules require cover during the grace period itself only where premiums are paid in instalments; for a policy renewed late in the grace period, an illness that began in the gap may not be covered. Check the renewal due date, the date your payment went through, and your wording's grace-period clause.

A lapse rejection is a dispute about two or three dates: when the renewal was due, when the premium was actually paid, and when the illness began or the admission happened. Get those exactly right before anything else.

The grace-period rules

IRDAI's Insurance Products Regulations, 2024 set the grace period for premium payment at 15 days where the premium is paid monthly and 30 days in all other cases. Cover need not be available for a period for which no premium has been received, but insurers must offer cover during the grace period if the premium is paid in instalments during the policy period.^[1]

Renewing within the grace period is not a break in policy, and it protects all the credits you have built up: sum insured, no claim bonus, specific and pre-existing disease waiting periods, and the moratorium. Paying after the grace period is a break in policy.^{[1, 2]}

Where claims fall into the gap

Checks before you reply

1. 1

   Find the exact due date

   Take it from the policy schedule, not from memory or an app reminder.

2. 2

   Prove the payment date

   A bank statement, card statement or the insurer's receipt shows when the premium was paid. If an auto-debit failed, find out why and keep the bank's message.

3. 3

   Check the renewal notice

   A wording can commit the insurer to a renewal notice in advance; one insurer's product says 30 days before the due date. Note whether you received one.^[3]

4. 4

   Fix the date the illness began

   If the illness started after the renewal took effect, the gap may not matter at all; show it from the medical record.

If the insurer has also refused to renew because of your claims, that is a separate point: renewal cannot be denied on the ground that you made claims in earlier years, except for a benefit policy, such as critical illness, that ends once its benefit is paid.^[1]

ClaimAssure is an independent private platform. It is not an insurer, IRDAI, Bima Bharosa or the Insurance Ombudsman, it never files anything on your behalf, and it cannot promise any outcome. What it does is read your documents and show you what they say.

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