“Sir, you just sign the proposal form, I will take care of filling it.” If your insurance agent or broker says this and you say yes, you have made your first claim mistake before buying the policy.
The proposal form is not a formality. It is the legal basis of your life or health insurance contract. If the intermediary, by mistake or deliberately to hasten issuance, fills in erroneous information — wrong address, wrong phone number, or worse, concealment of pre-existing disease — you are liable because you signed it.
Consequences are immediate and brutal. Renewal notices don’t reach you, policy lapses. Claim is rejected for non-disclosure, even if you did not know what was written. Courts have repeatedly held that proposer is bound by signed declaration, regardless of who filled it.
This is why insurers now push for self-filling, video KYC and OTP declarations. But in agent-driven markets, especially outside metros, the practice of agent filling remains rampant.
The article’s caution is basic financial literacy: read before you sign, especially when decision is critical and long-term. Verify address, nominee, medical history, income. Keep a photocopy of what you signed. In insurance, disclosure is not courtesy; it is contract. A signature without reading is not trust, it is a blank cheque on your own health and your family’s financial security. The next time someone asks you to just sign, ask them to just wait.