I am dealing with the other question…’Are you a member of Automobile Association of India?’ If yes, please submit a membership copy.
Firstly, there is no such association called Automobile Association of India. When I queried on my computer for the website of Automobile Association of India, I was directed to a website called Automobile Association of Upper India – www.aaui.org. Please understand that Automobile Association of India is a different one from the Automobile Association of Upper India! The Automobile Association of Upper India was founded in the year 1950. The first President of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad honoured the association by accepting to become its first patron-in-chief in 1950. It is a non-profit organisation. Its main objectives are to help and assist the motoring community, road users and government in road safety education.
As I decided to become a member of the Automobile Association of India or Automobile Association of Upper India, I tried to find out more information. They have 4 kinds of membership – Classic membership which costs Rs 4500; Silver membership which costs Rs 8000; Gold membership which costs RS 25000; and Platinum membership which costs Rs 35000.
I am a common man struggling to insure my own car – choice is Third Party or Comprehensive? I insure this car not because I love insurance but because it is compulsory. I struggle to pay the premium. Irrespective of the benefits this Association may offer, any common man cannot even afford a classic (basic) membership by paying Rs 4500. Let me not talk of the platinum membership. I was having a very good opinion about Babu Rajendra Prasad ji till today. Out of the millions of the motor insureds, I wonder how many would have become members of Automobile Association of India. Why do you ask these questions at all? Is this question worth the cost of its printing?
Either our insurance regulator IRDAI and non-life insurance companies are thinking not of tomorrow but of the day after tomorrow to include this question in the application or the millions of motor insurance policyholders are ___! You know I always prefer the policyholders. Am I not?
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
