Cyclone Murasu: How to Claim Car, Home, Shop and Crop Insurance for Cyclone and Flood Damage

The India Meteorological Department expects Severe Cyclonic Storm Murasu to cross the south Andhra Pradesh coast between Nellore and Narsapur, close to Ongole, between 11:30 pm on 2 November and 4 am on 3 November 2026, with winds of 100 to 110 km/h gusting to 120. It forecasts a storm surge of 1 to 1.2 metres over Bapatla, Guntur, Krishna and Prakasam districts, very heavy rain over coastal Andhra Pradesh on 2 and 3 November, extremely heavy at isolated places, and heavy rain over Tamil Nadu, south Odisha, Rayalaseema, Telangana and south Chhattisgarh. Once the wind and water have gone, the question for many families is money: which policy pays for the car, the house, the shop and the crop, and how quickly.

Written on 2 November 2026 from IMD's National Bulletin No. 8, issued at 9 pm on 1 November. Timings can change, so follow IMD's latest bulletin and your district administration. Safety comes first: no claim is worth staying in a vulnerable house or wading into flood water. The insurance rules below apply to any cyclone or flood, not just this one.

Before the storm: a short insurance checklist

None of this replaces the evacuation and safety advice from the district administration. It is what to do in the minutes you have once your family is safe.

• Record what you own, as it is now. A walk-through video of each room, the appliances with their model plates, the car from all four sides with the odometer, the shop's stock and the standing crop. A surveyor compares the damage with what existed; a dated video settles most arguments.
• Keep the policies where water cannot reach them. Download the e-policy or save it in DigiLocker, which IRDAI's master circular lets policyholders use for the soft copy. Note each insurer's claim helpline and your policy numbers on paper too, in case the phone dies.
• Move the car. IMD warns of uprooted trees, detached hoardings, flying metal sheets and water-logging in low-lying areas. Higher ground, away from trees and hoardings, is the best protection a policy cannot give you.
• Farmers: keep the details ready. The survey number of each insured field, the crop, the area, and the bank account from which the premium was paid. You will need them within 72 hours of any loss.
• Put documents in a waterproof bag. Aadhaar, bank passbook, vehicle registration, land papers and policy papers. If they are lost anyway, the rules below make room for that.

Which policy pays for what

Car and two-wheeler: the fine print that matters after a flood

The words are from New India Assurance's standard form for a private car package policy; other insurers' package policies carry a similar list of perils. Read your own policy schedule for the add-ons you bought.

• The cover. Section I pays for loss or damage to the car and its accessories by the listed natural perils, including flood, inundation and cyclone, and by accidental external means such as a falling tree.
• The exclusions. The policy does not pay for consequential loss, wear and tear, or mechanical or electrical breakdown. A separate condition says that if the vehicle is driven before necessary repairs, any extension of the damage is entirely at the insured's own risk. In plain terms: do not try to start a car that has stood in water. Have it towed. IRDAI's master circular says every retail customer can use the roadside assistance their product offers, on a cashless or reimbursement basis.
• Depreciation. Replaced parts are paid after a deduction unless you bought cover for depreciation, which IRDAI asks insurers to offer as a first choice. The standard rates are below.
• Salvage. For a partial loss, IRDAI says you are paid your claim and the insurer must collect the damaged parts. You do not have to dispose of them.

House: is flood in your policy?

IRDAI's master circular describes the homeowner policy this way: every retail customer gets fire cover for the building and contents, and has the option to add earthquake, cyclone, storm, hurricane, flood, inundation, lightning and landslide, or to exclude them. So the answer depends on what your schedule says.

• A standard home policy. New India Assurance's Bharat Flexi Griha Raksha base policy, for example, covers storm, cyclone, typhoon, tempest, hurricane, tornado, tsunami, flood and inundation unless you opted out, with no deductible. It also covers theft within seven days of an insured event and caused by it.
• Appliances. The same policy excludes damage to an electrical machine from short-circuiting, arcing or over-running, for that machine. That exclusion is worded around electrical faults; where flood water is what damaged an appliance, say so plainly in the claim.
• No warranties. IRDAI says no warranties apply to homeowner insurance, and, for every retail general policy, that a claim cannot be refused for breach of a warranty or condition that has nothing to do with the loss.

How to make the claim, step by step

1. Tell the insurer as soon as you safely can. Online, through the app, the call centre or your agent. IRDAI's master circular is clear that no claim shall be rejected or closed for want of documents or for delayed intimation, and that an insurer cannot reject a claim for your delay unless the delay made the assessed loss larger. Report early anyway: it gets you into the surveyor queue.
2. Photograph before you clean. Keep damaged items until the surveyor has seen them, but do take reasonable steps to stop further damage, such as covering a broken roof. The car policy requires it.
3. The surveyor. A loss of ₹50,000 or more on a motor policy, or ₹1 lakh or more on any other general insurance policy, must be surveyed by a registered surveyor and loss assessor. The surveyor must be allocated within 24 hours of your claim, and the insurer must tell you who it is and what the surveyor's role is.
4. The report. The surveyor must submit the report within 15 days of allocation. If the report is late, the claimant is paid ₹500 for each day of delay.
5. The decision. The insurer must decide within 7 days of the survey report, or 15 days after allocating the surveyor, whichever is earlier. This timeline does not apply to property insured on a reinstatement value basis.
6. If payment is late. When a claim is not settled within the timelines, the insurer must pay interest at the bank rate plus 2%, from the date it received your intimation to the date of payment, without being asked.
7. Documents. The insurer may ask only for documents directly related to the claim: the claim form, driving licence, permit or fitness for a commercial vehicle, an FIR or fire brigade report where relevant, repair bills where cashless repair is not available, and for a business the books of account and stock register.

After earlier cyclones, IRDAI has issued special directions to insurers. After Cyclone Amphan in May 2020, for instance, it asked them to name a senior nodal officer for the affected States and nodal officers in each district, publicise special claim camps and 24-hour helplines, survey claims immediately, engage enough surveyors, make on-account payments, and consider death claims where a death certificate is hard to get, following the procedure used after the Jammu and Kashmir floods. Check IRDAI's website for any similar circular for this storm.

Crop damage: the 72-hour rule

PMFBY covers a notified crop through three doors, and the cyclone can open any of them. The rules below are from the scheme's revised operational guidelines.

• Standing crop. Yield losses from cyclone, flood, inundation and storm are covered across the notified insurance unit, assessed from crop-cutting experiments at the end of the season. You do not claim this yourself.
• Post-harvest losses. A crop that has been cut and left in the field in "cut and spread" or small bundled condition to dry is covered for up to 14 days from harvest against hailstorm, cyclone, cyclonic rain and unseasonal rain. This is assessed field by field.
• Localised calamities. Losses to individual fields from hailstorm, landslide, inundation, cloudburst and natural fire. From Kharif 2026 the Ministry has brought paddy inundation back under this cover; it had been removed in 2018. Wild animal attack is now a fifth add-on, which States may notify.

How to report, and what happens next

1. Report within 72 hours of the damage, giving the survey number, the crop and the area affected, and your bank account number. You can report to the insurance company directly, through the Crop Insurance App, to your bank, to the local agriculture department or district officials, or on the toll-free number. For the new paddy inundation and wild animal covers, losses are reported on the Crop Insurance App with geotagged photographs.
2. The Krishi Rakshak Portal and Helpline, 14447, takes grievances and lets you track them. PIB reported in August 2026 that it has resolved 26.12 lakh grievances since its launch in January 2024.
3. The insurer appoints a loss assessor within 48 hours of the intimation. The loss is assessed jointly by the assessor, the block agriculture officer and you, within the next 10 days, and the claim is paid within 15 days after that, once the government's share of the premium subsidy has reached the insurer.
4. If more than 25% of the notified crop's area is hit, every eligible insured farmer in that unit who reported in time is treated as affected, and the percentage of loss is set by a sample survey.

The guidelines work through an example. A crop is insured for ₹50,000 and the field loss after harvest is assessed at 50%, so the post-harvest claim is ₹25,000. If the end-of-season yield for the unit later shows a 60% shortfall, the area claim is ₹30,000, and the farmer is paid the remaining ₹5,000. Where the expected yield for a season is less than 50% of normal, the State can also trigger an on-account payment of 25% of the likely claim, though not for adversity within 15 days of the normal harvest.

The scale is large. From Kharif 2016 to Rabi 2025-26, more than 92.46 crore farmer applications were insured and over 26.33 crore were paid claims exceeding ₹2.06 lakh crore, according to PIB's backgrounder of 29 August 2026.

If you have a loan: RBI's calamity relief rules

On 29 April 2026 RBI replaced its 2018 directions on relief in calamity areas with a new chapter in each lender's stressed-asset rules, in force from 1 July 2026. For commercial banks, the main points are these:

• The trigger. Relief follows the Central or State government's declaration of a calamity. A natural calamity means an event recognised under the National or State Disaster Response Fund.
• The bankers' meeting. The State Level Bankers' Committee, or the District Consultative Committee if only part of the State is hit, must meet within 15 days of the declaration, assess the impact, set the criteria for identifying affected borrowers, and decide any moratorium. Banks must publicise the decisions.
• Who is eligible. Borrowers whose accounts were standard and not more than 30 days overdue on any facility on the date of the calamity.
• No application needed. A bank may put a relief plan in place on its own after the committee recommends it. It must tell you, and you may opt out at any time up to 135 days from the declaration. Plans must be invoked within 45 days and implemented within 135 days of the declaration.
• What a plan can include. Rescheduling the repayments, converting interest into a separate facility, and additional finance where the borrower is viable. Banks need not wait for your insurance claim to be paid before restructuring or lending afresh; the insurance money is adjusted when it arrives.
• Lost title papers. For farm loans secured on land, a certificate from Revenue Department officials is accepted for farmers who lost their title deed.
• Banking without documents. Banks may run from temporary premises, must restore ATMs quickly, may open small accounts for people who lost their identity papers, and may waive or reduce fees for up to a year in the declared area.

A rescheduled loan is usually a longer loan. Before you accept or opt out, put the new tenure into the EMI calculator to see the instalment and the extra interest.

When a claim is stuck or rejected

Complain to the insurer first, through its grievance channel; IRDAI expects a decision within 14 days. You can also register the complaint on IRDAI's Bima Bharosa portal, and if the answer does not satisfy you, go to the Insurance Ombudsman. The guide to rejected claims sets out each step and the Ombudsman's limits. For a death claim under PMJJBY, the bank's claim form accepts a certificate from the District Magistrate, Collector or Deputy Commissioner as proof of death, as well as the registrar's certificate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does car insurance cover cyclone and flood damage? Yes, if it is a comprehensive (package) policy. Its own-damage section lists flood, inundation, storm and cyclone. A third-party-only policy does not pay for damage to your own vehicle.

My car was under water. Should I try to start it? No. The standard policy excludes mechanical breakdown and consequential loss, and says any further damage from driving before repairs is at your own risk. Photograph it, call the insurer and have it towed.

Will my claim be rejected because I reported it a few days late? Not for that reason alone. IRDAI's master circular says no claim may be rejected or closed for delayed intimation, and an insurer cannot reject for delay unless the delay increased the assessed loss. Crop insurance is different: the 72-hour reporting window is a condition of the localised and post-harvest covers.

How long does the insurer have to settle? A surveyor within 24 hours of the claim, a survey report within 15 days, and a decision within 7 days of the report. If it is late, it must pay interest at the bank rate plus 2% from the date you reported the claim.

Does home insurance cover flood damage? Only if your policy includes the flood and inundation perils. A standard home policy includes them unless you opted out; a fire-only policy covers them only if you added them. Check the schedule.

How do farmers claim crop insurance after a cyclone? Report the damage within 72 hours, with the survey number, crop and area, through the Crop Insurance App, the insurer, your bank, the agriculture department or the toll-free number. The insurer must appoint a loss assessor within 48 hours.

Can my bank give me a moratorium on my loan after the cyclone? Yes, once the government declares the calamity and the bankers' committee recommends relief. Under RBI's rules from 1 July 2026, the bank can reschedule or restructure without your application if your account was not more than 30 days overdue, and you can opt out within 135 days of the declaration.

I lost my documents in the flood. Can I still claim? Yes. The insurer can ask only for documents directly related to the claim, and the policy is on record with the insurer. Banks may open small accounts for people who lost their identity papers, and a Revenue Department certificate can stand in for a lost land title for a farm loan.