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General insurance is car, householder etc insurance. Term life or ULIP or highest NAV or whatever are Life Insurance. You said general insurance so I gave car insurance as an example.

OK it is 3:40 AM in the timezone I'm currently in and I'm jetlagged + awake but what am I missing here?

Hello everyone,

Approximately a year back, I bought the new model Mahindra Thar from India Garage, Anna Salai, Chennai. I didn't go with their insurance, but bought my own through my bank's partnership.

This month, as my policy is up for renewal, I have been getting calls from insurance companies (ICICI Lombard and HDFC ergo being the most recent). Some of them do not stop calling, I have to put them on my blocklist to avoid these calls.

Surprisingly, not only did they know my insurance renewal date, they knew the make and model of my car, my current insurance provider, my full name (apart from my phone number). This is all they divulged, I strongly suspect that they have most of the information I submitted to India Garage at the time of the purchase. When I asked the callers who gave my number, they all said it was India Garage.

Its upsetting to know that a company I did business with shares my personal details without my permission to pretty much everyone that asked for it. I escalated it to the sales team in India Garage, the representative asked me to write a strongly worded email (after trying to pin the blame on me). I did write the email and didn't get any response from them.

So,

1) Is this a common practice (this is my first new car purchase in India)?
2) If it is, how/why is this accepted by everyone? Is it legal to do this?
3) How to deal with this in the short term (make the calls stop) and long term (avoid getting my personal details leaked in future)?


Just being able to write this message in this forum makes me feel better. Thank you team-bhp.

Thanks in advance,
Lakshmi

Yes, this is very common and not restricted to one dealer or manufacturer. Experience the same every year for my vehicles. Note that this info may not be just from the dealer. A lot of it can come from the RT Office also. There may be other sources too. If someone calls me about insurance, I just say it's done. A lot of these calls come from centralized third party centers probably handling multiple companies. Do once you say done, I have noticed that the number of calls come down. Probably because your name gets cut off from one source that feeds multiple lists/companies once you are no longer a candidate.

The concept of privacy of personal information is quite alien in India. What ever care we take personally still may not be sufficient if there is someone else willing to share your info. So I doubt it is easy to stop it.

We do not have clear privacy laws in India and hence we are exploited. I am in the same boat as you. I have to renew the insurance for my Vento in a few days and I keep getting calls (some don't stop calling even after 3-4 tries). And some of them are insurance "aggregators" i.e. they offer quotes from multiple insurance providers. So, I am terribly confused as to who gave what quote and who I should call for what.

For now, I finally went to Bajaj Allianz and ICICI Lombard and have done quotes from both. I'll pick one and just close it. It's been a frustrating experience to say the least.

1) Not sure if its a common practice, I've never faced it. Of course I renew through the dealer each year foolishly parting with a few hundred rupees extra but I always feel time is more important so I accept that. In fact I got postal mail from the dealer a couple of times asking me not to go to outside sources or independent agents even if they call up as they will not give a good deal in the end. Safe to assume that this dealer may not leak the info to free agents because they want the business all for themselves.

2) It should not be accepted, but its a known fact that insurance is a mafia type organisation in India.. once you're in their books they'll try to leverage in any way possible. Telemarketing is not outlawed yet, but one question is have you registered your number with Do-Not-Disturb registry (DND) yet? Numbers registered as such cannot be disturbed with telemarketing calls (on the face of it) and people who do so will face risk of penalty if complained upon. Otherwise there is no legal protection as such against such calls.

3) Short term : The simplest route is to tell them that you've already paid in advance and renewed it, they'll have nothing more to add and will stop calling. A bit of stern talking will help if they're repeatedly calling (ok don't try this unless highly necessary, I flew off the handle with a phone marketeer and he started to as well and 5 minutes of profanities later I was happy to discover the calls didn't come again). Long term, if you're absolutely sure that the dealer in question leaked the details, stop dealing with them for anything. Take the service from another dealer and insurance as usual from your bank, the guilty party must be made to feel the loss of business only then they might stop revealing owner details in future. As for precautions.. nothing really that you can do except hope that every place that asks for details knows how to preserve it safely too.

Such things really gets on my nerves!! My blood boils at such unscrupulous buggers!! But then...

I realized, end of the day, I'm hurting myself, which is not worth; they're paid to do a job at the cost of my health.

Installed Truecaller & have eliminated 99.99% jokers from bank, credit card, insurance companies, mobile offers, donations, travel agencies etc

PS - You were lucky to know that your info was leaked from India Garage, there're many more ways in which your number can get through. One fine day you'll get to know that someone stole all such personal details from Income Tax of India & have sold it to some third party vendor :D

It is common practice and the data gets shared by the frontline staff at the dealer. All dealers have tie-up with some insurer or other and the reps for the insurers get the data from the showroom.

So far I have purchased 3 cars, 2 from TATA and 1 from Hyundai. Never had any such pesky calls for the TATA cars but for the Hyundai car (which was due for renewal in the first week of August) I have been getting on an average 3 calls a day for the last 1 month. So, what I do is on hearing the word insurance I simply cut the call.

If your number is on DNC registry, report them immediately and get their connection cut.

This has been such a routine occurrence for such long that it's just been accepted as a part of how things work now.

Very!

Book flight tickets for an int'l trip and you can count hours on one hand until you start receiving texts/emails for travel insurance!

I guess people haven't been bothered enough to revolt against.

The DND registry though has helped curb such calls to a LARGE extent.

Also, organizations such as Wikileaks are waging a battle on similar lines.

About whether it is legal or not; I doubt it is illegal because I don't remember ever signing a legal document specifically asking them to NOT share my info.

Registering on DND is a start; telling whoever calls that you already have renewed your policy also helps.


While I agree that privacy laws are very immature in India, information sharing is quite the norm even in countries such as the US where privacy is hotly debated.

Heck, that's how Google and Facebook make their money!

When I had Hyundai's I never took insurance from the dealer, but kept on getting calls from them (thank go not the insurance chaps) for years. This is unethical but quite common.

Some may recall that in the early days of the stock market boom, the applicant details /lists were apparently sold by the agents. I got a lot of solicitations which even had my application serial nos on them.

Personal data has to be treated with In Strict Confidence. There are no laws surrounding this in India. I don't think anybody can do this, without facing the consequence, in UK or in the USA. It's time we get data privacy rules in India!!

I used to say its done and the calls would start coming next year (sometimes, three months before insurance expiry). Then I started saying the that the car is sold and did not get calls ever again except from my current insurance company.

I believe insurance details are shared. There may be some common database that insurance companies use to get these details. Case in point being that my car and health insurance is coming up for renewal next month. For the past 2 weeks i have been getting calls that Truecaller has identified as various insurance companies (both health and vehicle). Interestingly, other than email reminders, my current insurers have not called!

Has anybody had any success complaining about telemarketing calls and messages while still being on the Do Not Call registry ?
My own experience with Airtel was shocking. I complained to them with evidence of a marketing sms (one out of many I received) and they simply closed the case asserting that "it is not a marketing message". Spending time with Customer Care on the phone was futile as well. To me, it looks like compliance with DNC is voluntary. If some organization chooses to ignore it, the telecom providers are not bothered to take action.

I've been subjected to such calls too, around the time of my car insurance renewals. Rather than lose my cool, i said i have already renewed, or in other cases, say that i am going with a different provider, as i haven't changed my insurance providers.

End of the day, data being supplied to telemarketers is common place and its someone's job to use that info. No point shouting at them and ruining both your day and theirs.

This is a very common practice here, and not restricted to Insurance, Credit Cards etc, even education is not spared.
On last exam day of my son’s 10th boards, I stated getting call from private coaching centers luring with a free aptitude test and scholarship on merit. All of them knew my name, mobile number, my son’s name, his school and the exam he has just appeared for.

DND will help only in case of registered telemarketers (where calling number begins with 140xxxxxxx). Nothing can be done for calls coming from regular mobile or fixed line numbers.
I just avoid taking calls from unknown numbers.