Lost Your Car Insurance Documents? Here is What You Need to Do

Car Insurance provides coverage against damages or losses incurred to the four-wheeler due to an accident. But you cannot get a claim if you have lost your car insurance documents. Apart from this, it is mandatory to have car insurance documents along with a valid driving license and registration certificate (RC) as per the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988. Not having these while driving can get you fined up to INR 2,000 from Traffic police and motor department officials.

Well, if you have misplaced or lost your car insurance documents, you don’t need to panic as you can get a duplicate copy of the same in a hassle-free manner. Wondering how to get the duplicate copy of your lost documents? Well, this article could help you know all the methods to follow in such an unfortunate situation. So, read on to know about these methods!

Methods to Follow On Losing Your Car Insurance Documents

If you don’t want to pay a penalty or face trouble during the cashless claim process as you have lost your car insurance documents, you should know the methods to get a duplicate copy. The following steps will help you in the same. Please check!

Contact your Insurance Agent

If you have purchased your car insurance from an agent and not directly from the insurance company, contact your agent. Insurance agents keep a record of their customers’ insurance copies, and they can send you the insurance documents via email upon request.

Write to your Insurance Company

You can contact your respective insurance company via call or email or social media handles in case you have lost your insurance documents. You will need to provide your registered mobile number and registered email ID. With this information, the insurer will find the details of your insurance policy.

Download Duplicate Car Insurance Policy

Nowadays, insurance companies provide an online portal where you can download a duplicate copy of your lost car insurance documents. To download the same, you will need to follow the steps mentioned below. Have a look!

1. Go to the official website of your Car Insurer. Select the ‘Car Insurance’ tab after which you will need to select the ‘Download Policy’ tab.
2. Here, you will need to enter your policy number and registered mobile number.
3. As soon as you feed in your mobile number, you will receive an OTP for the verification process.
4. After the verification, you will be able to download the duplicate copy of your insurance document. In some cases, you will need to provide your registered email ID too, where the insurer will send the same within a few days.

Note: You should also check whether your car insurance company offers the option to download the duplicate copy for your policy documents or not.

Apart from these methods, some insurance companies ask you to follow a few steps to get your duplicate copy, in case you have lost your original car insurance documents. Let’s look at them!

Step 1: Inform your Car Insurance Company

The first step would be to inform your respective insurance company about the loss or theft of your car insurance documents. You can do this by calling the toll-free number or email. It would be better if you use your registered email or registered contact number.

Step 2: File a First Information Report (FIR)

When you inform your respective insurance company, it may ask you to submit a self-attested copy of the First Information Report (FIR) with a request to issue a duplicate car insurance policy. To get the FIR copy, you should file an FIR at the nearest police station or online. Do remember to mention your policy number, type of car insurance, etc.

Step 3: Publish an Advertisement in the Local Newspaper

After losing your car insurance documents, you will also need to publish an advertisement regarding the same in a local newspaper. You will need to bear the cost of the advertisement publishing. This advertisement will announce the loss of car insurance documents mentioning your name & contact number. If a person finds your car insurance documents, he or she can get in touch with you.

Publish the advertisement, and you will need to submit a copy of the published ad to your insurance company. The following information should be in your advertisement.

1. Name of the Policyholder
2. Name of the respective Insurance Company
3. Policy number and issuance date
4. Registration number of two-wheeler

Step 4: Draw up an Indemnity Bond

The last step to get a duplicate copy of your insurance policy is to draw up an indemnity bond and submit this to your insurance company. Insurance companies ask policyholders to sign an indemnity bond on a non-judicial stamp paper. In this document, you will need to mention your policy number, your name, details of co-policyholders (if any). Apart from this, the indemnity bond will also need the signature of two witnesses (should not be family members).

By following these steps carefully, you can get a duplicate copy of your car insurance documents as soon as possible. To save yourself from such a situation, you should keep your car insurance documents in a safe place.