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The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority has introduced a mobile application that enables one to compare insurance products and premium rates. The application currently lets users of mobile phones/devices with internet connectivity check and compare features of Unit Linked Insurance Policies (ULIPs) introduced on or after 1st September, 2010.
1. Web aggregator shall display the particulars of validity of approval obtained from the Authority on its web site. 2. Web aggregator shall state clearly and unequivocally that insurance is the subject matter of solicitation. 3. At no point of time of its functioning, a web aggregator shall have net worth below rupees ten lakhs. 4. At no point of time of its functioning, a web aggregator shall have referral arrangement with any Insurer or act as an insurance broker, corporate agent, microinsurance agent, TPA, Surveyor or a loss assessor.
Pension products offered by life insurance companies have a special role to play in promoting and protecting the social security by provision of stable and adequate retirement income. The regulatory framework for pension business of life insurance industry should take into consideration the long-term risks inherent in the pension products. The need for greater security of the pensioner’s fund and the stability and financial viability of the insurance companies need to be balanced for healthy growth of the sector. Authority issues following instructions under section 14 of IRDA Act to achieve the above stated objectives.
Many representations have been made by the insurers to allow a higher revival period to enable the policyholder to revive at a later stage and requests were also made to allow the insurer to levy fund management charge for managing the discontinued linked fund. In consultation with the industry, the Authority, in exercise of powers vested under Regulation 11 of IRDA (Treatment of Discontinued Linked Insurance Policies) Regulations, 2010, the following guidelines/clarifications are issued. These guidelines/clarifications shall be effective from 1st November, 2011. For the purpose of the said Regulation:
With a view to ensuring that premiums are paid out of clearly identifiable sources of funds, it has been decided to permit premium/proposal deposits remittances in cash beyond Rs. 50000/- per transaction subject to the customer quoting PAN. Insurers shall verify the authenticity of the details of PAN so obtained.In case of customers not required to have PAN orwith only agricultural income, Form 60/61 prescribed under the provisions of Income Tax Rules shall be obtained. From the perspective of AML/CFT guidelines, it becomes imperative to obtain the details of PAN of the person/entity funding the premium/proposal deposit on an insurance policy.
The current contractual obligation imposing the condition that the claims shall be intimated to the insurer with prescribed documents within a specified number of days is necessary for insurers for effecting various post claim activities like investigation, loss assessment, provisioning, claim settlement etc. However, this condition should not prevent settlement of genuine claims, particularly when there is delay in intimation or in submission of documents due t0 unavoidable circumstances. The insurers’ decision to reject a claim shall be based on sound logic and valid grounds. It may be noted that such limitation clause does not work in isolation and is not absolute. One needs to see the merits and good spirit of the clause, without compromising on bad claims. Rejection of claims on purely technical grounds in a mechanical fashion will result in policyholders losing confidence in the insurance industry, giving rise to excessive litigation.
The IRDA, vide Circular, dated 10-2-2011, had issued guidelines on portability of health insurance policies which was to be introduced from 1-7-2011. Subsequently, on 24-6-2011, it was felt necessary to put in place a system to enable collection of data on the history of health insurance and monitoring the transfer of records of the porting policyholder. In that context, it was decided that the implementation of portability of health insurance policies would be mandated to commence no later than 1-10-2011. In continuation of the above guidelines, the detailed procedure on health insurance portability shall be as set out in these guidelines.
Reference is also invited to proviso 5.2 read in conjunction with Sl No. 2 Column 4 of Annexure – 1 of the within referred guidelines. With regard to the Registration Fee collected under RSBY in addition to the entities referred therein,
Though the Indian insurance industry has been in existence for over 125 years, the pace of standardization and integration has picked up speed with the liberalization of the sector. The most time and cost-consuming activities are concentrated in back office functions and administrative tasks. These business functions are the highest priority for automation and have the potential to deliver the fastest and greatest return on investment. While e-business greatly reduces these difficulties and removes all error-prone and slow administrative tasks, the challenge is ensuring that the sector is able to conduct business electronically.
Reference is invited to the captioned circular issued by the Authority. The Authority is in receipt of representations from the Industry seeking revisiting of certain provisions of the said circular. Accordingly, keeping in view the objective of ensuring higher levels of persistency of life insurance policies as also conserving the agency force, the Authority issues the following modifications.
