Return to Invoice cover, explained

Return to Invoice cover is an optional cover that pays back the full invoice price of your car, including its registration charges and road tax, if the car is stolen or damaged beyond repair. Without it, the most a plan pays is the Insured Declared Value (IDV), which is lower and falls every year.

The Insured Declared Value (IDV) is the current market value of your car, written into the policy, and it is the most a standard plan will pay on a theft or a total loss. It drops the moment the car leaves the showroom and keeps falling every year, while the price of buying the same car again does not.

Return to Invoice cover closes that difference. On the day the car is gone for good, the insurer pays the price on the car's original invoice, with the registration charges and road tax paid when the car was first bought, so the payout actually buys the same car again.

It attaches to an Own Damage or Comprehensive Plan

Return to Invoice cover attaches to the own-damage side of a policy, which is the side that pays for your own car. Optional covers all attach there, with one exception, Personal Accident cover. You need a Comprehensive Plan or a standalone Own Damage plan first. It cannot be added to a Third-Party plan, because a Third-Party plan holds nothing for your own car.

It only ever acts on the worst day

This cover does nothing on a repairable claim, however large that claim is. It exists for exactly 2 events, theft and total loss, which is why it works alongside covers that act on everyday damage rather than replacing them.

Optional cover, add-on and rider mean the same thing

You will see 3 words for the same thing: optional cover, add-on and rider. Some insurers also say add-on cover. Each one means an extra protection you choose on top of your base plan, for an extra premium. This page says "optional cover" throughout, and Return to Invoice cover is one of them. If a quote lists add-ons or riders, it is talking about the same covers.

Optional covers are also called add-on covers or riders. All 3 words mean the same thing, and Return to Invoice cover is one of them.

Your car has 2 prices in an insurance policy. The first is the invoice price, the amount you actually paid when you bought it. The second is the Insured Declared Value (IDV), the amount your policy says the car is worth today. The invoice price never changes. The IDV falls every year. The difference between the 2 is what Return to Invoice cover pays, and nothing else on your policy pays it.

The IDV falls because insurers take a fixed percentage off the car's ex-showroom price for every year of its age. The percentages below are the standard ones, and they are the reason a 2-year-old car is insured for noticeably less than it cost.

These are the standard slabs insurers work to. The exact IDV on your own car is printed on your policy document, and you can see it before you buy.

On an ordinary car this difference starts at about ₹50,000 in the first months, and it grows every year as the IDV falls. Return to Invoice cover is the only optional cover that pays more than the IDV.

Every later section on this page refers back to this one number: the difference between what your car cost you and what your policy says it is worth now.

Take a small hatchback bought 5 months ago. The invoice came to ₹6 lakhs in total: ₹5.4 lakhs for the car and ₹60,000 for registration charges and road tax. At 5 months old, 5% comes off the car's price to set the IDV, so the IDV is ₹5.13 lakhs. The difference between the 2 numbers is ₹87,000. That ₹87,000 is what this cover is about.

The car is taken from street parking overnight and never found. Your deductible of ₹1,000 comes off the payout either way, and every other step of the claim is identical. The only thing that changes is the amount at the end.

Amounts shown are an illustrative example. What you actually receive depends on your car, its age, the price on its invoice and the plan you hold.

What the cover itself costs a year

Return to Invoice cover typically costs ₹1,000 to ₹3,000 a year, before Goods and Services Tax (GST), on an ordinary car in a large city. On the hatchback above it closes a difference of ₹87,000. On a costlier car, or on an older one, the difference runs into lakhs. Either way, the premium is the smallest number in the example. What you pay moves with your car's Insured Declared Value (IDV), its age and the city it is parked in.

₹1,000 to ₹3,000 a year buys back a difference that starts at about ₹50,000 and grows every year the car gets older.

The short version. Return to Invoice cover changes what the worst day pays, lifting it from the IDV up to the price on your invoice. On every other day it does nothing, by design.

Fitted something after you bought the car? A music system, alloy wheels, a dashcam or a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) kit are not on the original invoice, so they are not automatically in the payout. Tell Kiwi Insurance as soon as the work is done and ask for the item and its value to be added to your policy. Once it is listed on your policy document it is part of what you are paid. A modification you never declared is not paid for, and on a large change such as a fuel kit it can put the whole claim at risk.

This is worth doing at the time, not later. Adding an accessory to the policy is a small change you can make during the policy year, unlike the cover itself, which attaches only at purchase or renewal.

Return to Invoice cover is sold on young cars, usually up to 3 years old and with a few insurers up to 5 years old, whether you bought the car new or second-hand, as long as the car's original purchase invoice can be produced at claim time. There is no waiting period. The cover works from the first day of the policy. Kiwi Insurance offers the cover until the car is [number] years old.

Theft claims take longer than repair claims by their nature, because the police have to close their search first. Your personal Claims Specialist, who is assigned as soon as you register the claim, manages the file through that wait, so the delay is the police timeline rather than you chasing anybody.

A theft or total loss claim ends the policy on that car, because there is no longer a car to insure. There is no renewal on that car afterwards, so this cover makes no difference to your No Claim Bonus (NCB).

What counts as a total loss

A total loss is declared when the cost of repairing the car comes to more than 75% of its IDV, after an accident, a fire or a flood. Below that figure the insurer pays for the repair. Above it, the insurer pays out for the whole car, and that is the moment Return to Invoice cover starts working.

At 75% of the IDV, the insurer stops paying for repairs and pays for the car instead. Return to Invoice cover decides what that payment is worth.

How soon you have to tell us

Report a theft to the police the same day you find the car gone, and in any case within 24 hours. Then register the claim with Kiwi Insurance. Kiwi Insurance asks for the claim to be registered within [number] days of the event, whether it is a theft or a total loss. A delay beyond that gives the insurer a reason to question the claim, and on a theft it also makes the police search harder.

There is no second deadline after that. Once the claim is registered, the police statement and the paperwork can follow at their own pace, and your Claims Specialist tells you what is still outstanding.

Return to Invoice cover changes what the worst day pays. What it does not do is act on any other day, and its limits are worth knowing plainly before you add it.

The cover is written for 2 events, theft and total loss. Outside those it does nothing at all on a claim. It does not raise repair payouts, it does not remove anything your policy excludes, and it cannot make a claim payable that was never payable. If the theft claim itself fails, for example because the keys were left in the car, there is nothing for the cover to lift.

Things to know before you add it

• It attaches only at purchase or renewal. You cannot add it part way through a policy year. If you skip it now, you have to wait for your next renewal
• It has an age limit. Most insurers sell it only until the car is 3 years old, and a few until it is 5 years old. After that it cannot be renewed
• It does nothing on repairable claims. However large the repair, the cover pays nothing while the car can still be repaired
• A theft claim needs a police report, made as soon as you find the car gone, and later the police statement saying the car could not be traced
• It does not remove your deductible. The fixed part of the claim stays yours to pay
• On a car bought with a loan the lender is paid first. The amount still owed comes out of the payout before the balance reaches you
• It does not pay for damage the car already had. Damage that was there before the policy began, and was never repaired, is left out of any claim. On a total loss, that old damage can lower the amount you are paid. If you buy the cover on a second-hand car, or after a break in cover, the insurer may inspect the car first and write down any old damage. Get it repaired, or make sure it is recorded, before the cover starts
• It pays once. A theft or total loss claim ends the policy on that car, because there is no longer a car to insure

Keys left in the car. This exclusion catches many theft claims, and most owners do not expect it. Take the keys with you even for a 2 minute stop, because a theft claim that fails takes Return to Invoice cover with it.

Renewing from another insurer? Your optional covers do not carry across automatically. Choose Return to Invoice cover again on the new policy, and bring your No Claim Bonus (NCB) certificate so the discount you have earned comes with you. It carries across as long as your old policy is renewed within 90 days of its expiry. After that it is lost.

A written change to a live policy is called an endorsement. Most standard endorsements come from the India Motor Tariff (IMT), the standard set of rules motor insurers use. Each type and what it does is set out on the India Motor Tariff (IMT) endorsements page.

Premium ranges are indicative for a car registered in a large city, from a small hatchback to a large sport utility vehicle (SUV), before Goods and Services Tax (GST). What you actually pay depends on your car's Insured Declared Value (IDV), its age and your insurer. Prices for the same cover differ between insurers.

Return to Invoice cover only acts when the car is stolen or damaged beyond repair. The everyday claims in between belong to the covers beside it, and you can hold all of them on the same policy.

There is no limit on how many you hold

Return to Invoice cover, Zero Depreciation cover and Engine Protect cover can be held on the same policy without clashing, and on a car under 3 years old many owners take all 3. There is no maximum number of optional covers one policy can carry, at Kiwi or anywhere else, so take as many as you have a use for. Each one is written for a different moment, so they never overlap: Zero Depreciation cover acts on ordinary repairs, Engine Protect cover acts on engine damage a standard plan refuses, and Return to Invoice cover acts only when the car is gone for good. Held together they leave very little that a claim can fall between.

Most insurers sell a Return to Invoice cover. What differs is what happens on the day you need it: how the wait is handled, what the payout includes, and what the insurer adds on top.

“We built Kiwi so that on the day it matters, you have one person who answers, owns your claim, and sees it through.” — Saurav Jaiswal, Co-founder, Kiwi Insurance

And what comes with every plan, at no extra cost

Kiwi PayFirst, Kiwi Insurance Flexi Repair and Kiwi InstaCash are optional covers as well. Right now Kiwi gives all 3 to every policyholder at no extra cost, so they come with your plan and you pay nothing more for them.