Consider the following statements regarding the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana : 1. It is applicable for all bank account holders up to the age of 60 years. 2. It is a life insurance cover. 3. It is an accident insurance cover. 4. The insurance covers death and permanent disability due to accident. Which of the above statements are correct ?
- (a)1 and 2 only
- (b)3 and 4 only
- (c)2 and 3 only
- (d)1 and 4 only
Answer
Why
Correct — B, (b) 3 and 4 only.
Statements 3 and 4 are true; statements 1 and 2 are false. Take them in the order that settles the question fastest.
STATEMENTS 2 AND 3 CONTRADICT EACH OTHER, and noticing that is worth several seconds. Statement 2 says the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana is a LIFE insurance cover; statement 3 says it is an ACCIDENT insurance cover. A scheme is one or the other, so exactly one of the two must be false, and any option that admits both has already gone wrong on its own terms. That disposes of one option before a single fact has been recalled.
STATEMENT 3 IS THE TRUE ONE. The Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana is an accident insurance scheme. It pays on accidental death and on disablement caused by an accident, and it pays nothing at all if the subscriber dies of illness or of any other natural cause. Its sibling scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, is the life cover of the pair and pays on death from ANY cause. The two were launched together and are delivered through the same bank-account and auto-debit machinery, which is exactly why a paper can expect candidates to confuse them — and why statement 2 is on the list.
STATEMENT 4 IS ALSO TRUE. The cover is for accidental death and for permanent disablement resulting from an accident. The scheme pays the full sum assured of ₹ 2 lakh on accidental death and on total and irrecoverable loss of both eyes, or of both hands or feet, or of one eye and one limb; and it pays half that amount, ₹ 1 lakh, on the total and irrecoverable loss of one eye or of one hand or foot. So death and permanent disability are precisely the two contingencies covered, and the statement describes the scheme accurately.
STATEMENT 1 IS FALSE, and it fails on the number. The scheme is open to savings bank account holders between EIGHTEEN and SEVENTY years of age. The statement gives an upper limit of sixty, which shuts out the whole decade from sixty to seventy that the scheme actually covers, and it names no lower limit at all, which would let in those below eighteen who cannot join. It is also loose in saying "all bank account holders": participation runs through a savings bank account, with one account per bank used for the purpose. The upper age of seventy is the figure to fix in memory, because it is the highest of the three schemes launched in that group and is regularly tested against the fifty of the life cover and the forty of the pension scheme.
So the true statements are 3 and 4, and the answer is option (b).
The item prints its question sentence directly after the numbered list with no codes line, which is this paper's habit in about a dozen places.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)1 and 2 only — This option is wrong twice over, since both of the statements it names are false. Statement 1 misstates the eligibility: the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana takes savings bank account holders from eighteen to seventy years of age, not everyone up to sixty, and the ten-year band from sixty to seventy that the statement excludes is a real and deliberate part of the scheme's design — accident cover is worth having at ages when life cover is dear. Statement 2 misstates the nature of the cover: this is accident insurance, and death by illness or by any natural cause is outside it altogether. A candidate lands here by remembering only that two insurance schemes were launched together through the banking system and then attaching the more familiar phrase, life insurance, to whichever name comes first. The two schemes have to be learnt as a contrasting pair, never as a single idea with two names.
- (c)2 and 3 only — This option is self-defeating before any fact is checked, because it accepts both statement 2 and statement 3 — that the scheme is a life insurance cover and that it is an accident insurance cover. Those are alternative descriptions of what a policy insures against, and a single scheme cannot be both. Whenever a statement list contains two propositions that cannot both hold, an option naming both can be struck out on logic alone, and it is worth scanning any four-statement list for such a pair before beginning to recall facts. On the merits, statement 3 is the survivor: the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana pays on accidental death and on permanent disablement caused by an accident, and it is the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana that provides cover against death from any cause. The option also discards statement 4, which is a true and precise description of the two contingencies actually covered.
- (d)1 and 4 only — This option keeps the true statement 4 and pairs it with the false statement 1, while discarding statement 3 — which is the very statement that statement 4 elaborates. That combination is incoherent on inspection: the option accepts that the scheme covers death and permanent disability DUE TO ACCIDENT, and then declines to accept that the scheme is an accident insurance cover. The two statements say the same thing at different levels of detail, so an option that takes one and leaves the other has not read them together. On the eligibility point, the failure is the same as elsewhere on this list: the age band runs from eighteen to seventy, and a limit of sixty is simply the wrong number. A candidate who is unsure of the exact ages should still be able to reject the option on the internal ground, which needs no recall at all.
Concept
THE SUITE OF SCHEMES LAUNCHED IN 2015 should be learnt as a set of three, because almost every question about any one of them is really a question about telling it apart from the other two.
PRADHAN MANTRI SURAKSHA BIMA YOJANA — ACCIDENT cover. Ages 18 to 70. A very small annual premium taken by auto-debit from the savings bank account. ₹ 2 lakh on accidental death or total permanent disablement; ₹ 1 lakh on partial permanent disablement. Underwritten by general insurance companies in tie-up with banks. A one-year cover, renewable annually, with the renewal premium taken by auto-debit before the cover year begins on the first of June.
PRADHAN MANTRI JEEVAN JYOTI BIMA YOJANA — LIFE cover. Entry at ages 18 to 50, with cover running to age 55. ₹ 2 lakh on death from ANY cause. Underwritten by life insurance companies in tie-up with banks. Also a one-year renewable cover on the same annual cycle.
ATAL PENSION YOJANA — OLD AGE. Entry at ages 18 to 40, pension from 60, a guaranteed monthly pension between ₹ 1,000 and ₹ 5,000, regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority.
Three contingencies — accident, death, old age — three age bands, three administering arrangements. Laid out that way the set is hard to confuse; learnt one scheme at a time it is very easy to confuse, which is what these questions exploit.
THE COMMON DESIGN behind all three is worth understanding as policy, because it explains the details. Each is delivered through an existing savings bank account, which solves the identification and collection problem that had defeated earlier attempts to reach the unorganised sector; each takes its premium or contribution by AUTO-DEBIT, which removes the lapse risk that kills small policies; and each is deliberately simple, with a single benefit amount and no medical underwriting, so that it can be sold at scale by bank staff rather than by insurance agents. The insurance schemes are annual contracts renewed by the auto-debit, not lifetime policies.
ACCIDENT COVER AGAINST LIFE COVER is the substantive distinction being tested here. Accident insurance is cheap because accidental death is rare and the risk does not rise steeply with age, which is why the accident scheme can accept subscribers to seventy at a nominal premium. Life insurance is dearer and its cost rises sharply with age, which is why the life scheme stops taking new entrants at fifty and ends cover at fifty-five. The age bands are not arbitrary administrative choices; they follow from what is being insured.
This is the second of three items on this paper dealing with the schemes launched under the same social-security umbrella — the pension scheme a couple of questions earlier, this accident cover here, and the life cover later in the same run. An EPFO candidate should expect that concentration, since these schemes are the part of current affairs closest to the work of the organisation.
The construction is a four-statement list with two true and two false, which is harder than the more common three-and-one arrangement because it gives no majority to lean on. What it does give is a CONTRADICTORY PAIR, and spotting it is the shortcut. Statements 2 and 3 offer two incompatible descriptions of the same scheme, so at most one can be true, and any option containing both is dead on arrival. That kind of internal check is available surprisingly often in statement-list questions and costs nothing to look for.
The habit rewarded is comparative rather than isolated learning. A candidate who has memorised the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana on its own will hesitate over the age of sixty; a candidate who has learnt the three schemes side by side knows immediately that sixty belongs to none of them — the numbers in this family are forty, fifty, sixty and seventy, and each is attached to a different scheme and a different role, sixty being the vesting age of the pension rather than an entry limit for insurance.
It is also worth dating what one learns. The premiums of both insurance schemes were revised upward after this paper was set, while the cover amounts and the age bands stayed where they were. The stable parameters are the ones a paper is most likely to test; the revised ones are the ones a candidate is most likely to get wrong by answering from today's figure.
Key facts
- The Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana is an ACCIDENT insurance scheme; it does not pay on death from illness or any other natural cause.
- It is open to savings bank account holders aged 18 to 70 years, which is why the statement limiting it to sixty is false.
- The cover is ₹ 2 lakh for accidental death and for total permanent disablement, and ₹ 1 lakh for partial permanent disablement.
- The premium is taken annually by auto-debit from the savings bank account, and the cover is a one-year contract renewed on the same cycle each June.
- Its sibling, the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, is the LIFE cover of the pair: entry at 18 to 50, cover to 55, and ₹ 2 lakh on death from any cause.
- The third scheme of the group, the Atal Pension Yojana, covers old age with entry at 18 to 40 and a guaranteed pension from the age of 60.
- Statements 2 and 3 of this item are mutually exclusive descriptions of the cover, so any option accepting both can be rejected without recalling a single fact.
- Accident cover can extend to seventy at a nominal premium because accidental death is rare and its risk does not climb steeply with age, unlike mortality from all causes.
- The premiums of both insurance schemes were revised upward after this paper was set, while the sums assured and the age bands were left unchanged.
Study next
Common traps
- Attaching "life insurance" to the accident scheme because the two were launched together through the same banking channel.
- Accepting an option that contains two mutually exclusive statements. A scheme cannot be both a life cover and an accident cover.
- Using sixty as an age limit. Sixty is the vesting age of the pension scheme, not an entry limit for either insurance scheme.
- Separating statement 3 from statement 4, which say the same thing at different levels of detail and must stand or fall together.
- Answering the premium from today's figure. The premiums of both insurance schemes were revised after this paper was set, though the sums assured were not.
- Forgetting that these are annual contracts renewed by auto-debit, not policies that run for life once taken.
Questions on the flagship social-security schemes turn up on every EPFO paper and are answered from a small table of parameters. The recurring asks are the entry ages, the sum assured or pension amount, the premium or contribution, the administering or regulating body, the contingency covered, and what happens on death. A four-statement list of the kind used here lets a setter test three or four of those at once.
The two devices to expect are the CROSS-ATTRIBUTION — a genuine feature of one scheme stated of another, as with the life-cover claim here — and the WRONG NUMBER, where a real figure from the family is attached to the wrong scheme, as with sixty. Both are defeated by learning the schemes comparatively, in a single table, rather than one at a time in isolation.
Inside a statement list, look for structure before recall. A contradictory pair, a statement that merely elaborates another, an absolute claim using "no" or "all" — each of these narrows the options without any knowledge of the subject. On this item the contradictory pair alone removes an option, and noticing that statements 3 and 4 must stand together removes another. What remains is one genuine fact to settle, the age band, and the whole question turns on it.
Related PYQs
EPFO_APFC_2016_Q115Consider the following statements regarding the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana : 1. It is applicable to all adults above the age group of 18 years. 2. The premium is deducted from the account holder's bank account through 'auto debit facility'. 3. The life insurance worth is decided by the account holder and he has to pay the annual premium accordingly. 4. The life insurance amount is given to the family after the death of the subscriber. Which of the above statements are correct ?
- (a) 1 and 3 only
- (b) 1 and 4 only
- (c) 2 and 4 only
- (d) 2 and 3 only
Answer(c) 2 and 4 only
The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana on this same paper — the life-cover sibling of this scheme, tested through the same four-statement construction and turning again on the entry age band.
EPFO_APFC_2016_Q100Consider the following statements in respect of Atal Pension Yojana : 1. Beneficiary must be in the age group of 18 to 40 years. 2. Beneficiary will receive the pension only after he attains the age of 60 years. 3. After the death of a beneficiary, his spouse continues to receive the pension. 4. No nominee of the beneficiary is permitted. Which of the above statements are correct ?
- (a) 3 and 4 only
- (b) 1, 3 and 4 only
- (c) 1, 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer(c) 1, 2 and 3 only
The Atal Pension Yojana on this paper, the third member of the same group of schemes, covering old age rather than accident or death.
EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q90Which one of the following is the amount of annual premium of the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) for accident and disability cover up to ₹ 2,00,000?
- (a) ₹ 100
- (b) ₹ 50
- (c) ₹ 20
- (d) ₹ 12
Answer(d) ₹ 12
The annual premium of the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana for the accident and disability cover, asked directly on another EPFO sitting.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
Within which age band may an individual join the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana through a savings bank account ?
- (a)18 to 50 years
- (b)18 to 60 years
- (c)18 to 70 years
- (d)21 to 65 years
Answer(c) 18 to 70 years — the accident cover has the widest age band of the group, because the risk it insures does not rise steeply with age. The band of 18 to 50 belongs to the life cover of the same family, and 60 is the vesting age of the pension scheme rather than any entry limit.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Of the two insurance schemes launched together in 2015 through the banking system, which one provides cover against death from ANY cause rather than only from an accident ?
- (a)The Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana
- (b)The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana
- (c)Both of them provide such cover
- (d)Neither of them provides such cover
Answer(b) The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana — it is the life cover of the pair and pays the sum assured on death from any cause, while the Suraksha Bima Yojana pays only on accidental death and on permanent disablement caused by an accident.