Next: Credit and debt
Credit scores, decoded
Four bureaus score you from 300 to 900, every one of them owes you a free report each year, and most of what people repeat about scores is wrong.
14 min
beginner
Motor insurance: the cover the law asks for
The cover the law asks for pays other people, never your own vehicle — and IDV, the deductible and the no-claim bonus decide what comes back to you.
3 lessons · about 24 minutes · written for reading age 13 · last checked 2026-08-12
The cover for others, and the cover for you
A motor policy holds two different covers. Only one of them is compulsory, and it is not the one that pays a single rupee towards your own vehicle.
8 min
IDV, the deductible and the bonus
Three numbers on the own-damage side — IDV, the deductible and the no-claim bonus — decide how much of a repair or theft claim actually reaches you.
8 min
Add-ons, and the day you claim
What zero-depreciation actually changes, why a new vehicle carries two clocks that end on different dates, and the order a claim has to go in.
8 min
Check yourself
5 questions at the end. Every wrong answer explains itself.
Sources
- The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 — sections 146, 147 and 196 — India Code, Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice · checked 2026-08-12
- Plying motor vehicles without valid motor third party insurance is a punishable offence — Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways · checked 2026-08-12
- Handbook on Motor Insurance — Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India · checked 2026-08-12
- Circular IRDAI/NL/CIR/MOT/137/08/2018 — long-term motor third party cover for new vehicles — Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India · checked 2026-08-12