mumbai general insurance company hdfc ergo has won the mandate to provide insurance cover to all rupay cardholders a move which will benefit the insurance company with the government ready to implement the financial inclusion agenda the reserve bank of indiapromoted national payments corporation of india npci a company which provides the technology backbone for most payments in india as well as offers the rupay card has given the contract to hdfc ergo for a period of three years according to the terms hdfc ergo would provide an insurance cover of rs 1 lakh to all rupay cardholders which can be claimed in case of death or permanent disability ap hota ceo and md of npci confirmed that the company has tied up with hdfc ergo for the rs 1 lakh insurance cover however in an email response to et a spokesperson for hdfc ergo said we wont be participating for this story the company has issued 23 crore cards and it is estimated that 15 crore new bank accounts would be opened and as many new cards would be issued in the unbanked areas by march 2016 and the premium will be paid by npci and not the cardholder bank officials who did not wish to be identified said that npci would be paying a premium of rs 1 per card we are in the process of simplifying the claims procedure and also making customers more aware of their procedure to make claims said hota however the insurance company will consider the claim only if the card is active a card would be considered active if the cardholder has swiped it within 45 days of making a claim npci is in talks with hdfc ergo to improvise a scheme wherein the claim could be made if it had been swiped 90 days before the narendra modiled government had announced on august 15 a massive financial inclusion plan of opening bank accounts and providing insurance cover on thursday the financial inclusion programme called jan dhan yojana will be launched in 75 centres covering 600 districts and 60000 villages it is estimated that 60 of countrys population does not have access to formal banking services the jan dhan yojana aims to provide one bank account for every household in a year since each new accountholder will also be given the rupay card this will increase the customer base of hdfc ergo