HDFC Life rejects Rs 50 lakh insurance claim over two existing policies: Widow wins after court finds the proposal form never asked about other insurers; full payout ordered

After HDFC Life rejected a Rs 50 lakh life insurance claim filed by the widow of a doctor, alleging that he had failed to disclose two existing insurance policies while purchasing the cover, a consumer commission has ruled in her favour, holding that the insurer failed to prove fraudulent suppression of material facts.

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, directed HDFC Life Insurance Company Ltd. to pay the full assured amount of Rs 50 lakh, along with Rs 50,000 as compensation for mental agony and Rs 10,000 towards litigation costs. The order was pronounced on June 1, 2026.

Why did the insurance dispute reach the consumer court?

The complaint was filed by Bonthala Sindhuja, wife and nominee of late Dr G. Sravan Kumar, who worked as an ICU duty doctor specialising in anaesthesia at Aadya Multi Specialty Hospital.


According to the complaint, Dr Kumar had purchased HDFC Life's Click 2 Protect Super Policy for a sum assured of Rs 50 lakh. The policy commenced on October 15, 2022, after payment of an annual premium of Rs 11,478.28.

Nearly a year later, tragedy struck.

On February 16, 2024, while on night duty at the hospital, Dr Kumar was found unconscious in the doctors' rest room. He was declared dead due to cardiac arrest.

Following his death, Sindhuja, being the nominee under the policy, submitted a claim seeking the insurance proceeds.

However, on May 22, 2024, HDFC Life repudiated the claim.

The insurer's internal Review Committee subsequently upheld the rejection on June 22, 2024.

Left without the insurance amount, Sindhuja approached the District Consumer Commission, alleging deficiency in service and seeking payment of the policy amount.

Why HDFC Life said no

The insurer's reason was non-disclosure. According to HDFC Life, Dr Sravan Kumar had two other active life insurance policies at the time he filled out the proposal form in September 2022: one with Kotak Life for over Rs 1 crore and another with Bharati AXA for Rs 1 crore. Neither, the insurer argued, was mentioned in the HDFC Life proposal form.

HDFC Life's position was that had these policies been disclosed, it may not have issued the policy at all. The insurer said this amounted to a breach of the principle of utmost good faith, which underpins all insurance contracts, and used it to justify repudiation.

Sindhuja challenged the decision internally. A review committee upheld the rejection in June 2024. She then approached the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Kurnool in January 2025.

What did the widow argue before the commission?

Sindhuja argued that the rejection had no connection whatsoever with the actual cause of death.

She maintained that her husband died of cardiac arrest while on duty and that the insurer had not shown how the alleged non-disclosure of other insurance policies had any bearing on either the issuance of the policy or the death claim.

According to her, the repudiation was arbitrary, illegal and unsustainable.

What the commission found

The commission examined the proposal form closely. The question about existing policies, it found, was specifically worded to ask about other HDFC Life policies, not policies held with other insurers. The form did not clearly ask the proposer to disclose coverage from all insurance companies.

The bench held that where a contract or form contains ambiguous language, the ambiguity must be read against the party that drafted it. In insurance law, this principle is called contra proferentem, and it means HDFC Life could not use its own unclear wording as grounds to deny a claim.

The commission also looked at what Section 45 of the Insurance Act requires before an insurer can repudiate a policy. The law requires the insurer to prove that any suppression was fraudulent and material to the risk. HDFC Life, the commission noted, produced no evidence of either. The doctor died of a natural cause. There were no suspicious circumstances. The non-disclosure of other policies had no bearing on the cause of death.

The commission further referred to a Supreme Court ruling in Mahaveer Sharma vs Exide Life Insurance Co. Ltd., decided in February 2025, which held that non-disclosure of minor or unrelated policies does not by itself justify repudiation of a death claim.

The review committee, the bench added, appeared to have acted mechanically without applying independent judgement to the facts.

What the commission ordered

The commission ruled partly in Sindhuja's favour and directed HDFC Life to pay the full assured sum of Rs 50 lakh. It also ordered Rs 50,000 as compensation for mental agony and Rs 10,000 towards litigation costs.

The insurer has 45 days from receipt of the order to comply. If payment is not made within that period, the entire amount will attract interest at 12 per cent per annum from the date the complaint was filed until the money is actually paid.

Check the case judgement here: