Herd this? Owners have to show their dead cow's severed right ear to claim insurance!

Animal rights activists might have a thing or two to say and the tech- savvy amongst us might recoil at how primitive it is, but did you know that the reimbursement of cattle insurance depends on the severed ear of the animal as key evidence?

Claimants seeking reimbursement following the demise of their cows have to chop off part of the animal's ear which has a punched ear tag with a number and submit it to the insurance company, say government and private insurance companies.

"The ear tag carrying a unique number is punched into the animal's ear by an empanelled doctor when the animal is bought. The insurance company also keeps a record of the ear tag number. Later, when the animal dies, the doctor conducts a post-mortem and submits the report to the insurance company along with the severed bit of the ear," an official with Oriental Insurance explained.

This has always been the only way for verification of claims, he added. The ear is stored along with the post-mortem report of the animal in company files for verification before the claim is paid.

Needless to add, the cattle insurance scheme, which also applies to other bovine animals like bulls and oxen as well as goats and camels, has maximum takers in rural India.

Doesn't this primitive way of verification make way for more fraudulent claims?

"In case a fraudulent claim is suspected, we send investigation officers to independently verify the case. The reimbursement is done only after the officer clears the case," the official said.

Oriental officials based in Varanasi, which also looks into claims received from other parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, admitted that the company has limited the cattle insurance scheme in the wake of massive fraudulent claims.

"The cattle insurance scheme is a loss-making one. Since at least 90 per cent of the claims we received were false, we have limited this department to a large extent," said an official who deals with cattle insurance.

"On many occasions, the ear is brought from the local slaughterhouse and punched with a tag. At times, we are deliberately informed on the weekend (about the animal's demise) so that no immediate check-up can be conducted. Later, the animal carcass is decomposed beyond recognition. So all we are provided with is just an ear and a medical report. Only in certain cases the investigation officer is able to prove that the claim is fraudulent," said the official, adding that everyone, including doctors and bank officials, are part of the racket.

Officials at the Delhi head office of Oriental Insurance remained unavailable for comments, despite repeated attempts to contact them.

Private insurance companies like HDFC Ergo, which deal in cattle insurance policies in certain states also admit that there are fraudulent cases. However, company officials said fraudulent cases were lower in Gujarat, the only state where its cattle insurance scheme is fully operational.

"We receive an average of 90 claims a month, of which about five are false," a doctor associated with the scheme said

Strangely, insurance companies have failed to devise an alternative way to reimburse cattle claims, making it extremely difficult for those who have misplaced the tag.

The flip side of the story is that those who spend their hard-earned money buying cows end up being victims.

Subhadra Devi (name changed) from Meerut, for instance, had bought a Holstein Friesian cow for Rs 50,000, hoping for a daily yield of 20 litres of milk. She got the cow insured and the ear tag punched by the local doctor. However, the cow died in just five months and Subhadra Devi realised that she had lost the tag.

"There was no other way to claim the insurance. We had to get a duplicate ear tag fixed with the help of a local doctor. The ear tag didn't have a clear number and the insurance company refused to reimburse our claim," she said.

"If humans are not mutilated after death, why mutilate an animal after it dies to prove its death?" she said.