: Happy with regulatory relaxations Indian insurance sector wants more #IndiaNEWS #Business By Venkatachari JagannathanChennai, June 16 | Indias insurance regulator is in reform mode with a series of

Happy with regulatory relaxations Indian insurance sector wants more #IndiaNEWS #Business
By Venkatachari JagannathanChennai, June 16 | Indias insurance regulator is in reform mode with a series of industry friendly measures hoping that it would result in more people buying insurance protection.
Happy with the winds of change, the sector wants more relaxation.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) under its new Chairman Debasish Panda has been reviewing various sectoral regulations and is the process of relaxing many of them.
The IRDAI has slashed the number of offline returns submitted by the life insurers to four from 40 and the online returns to five from eight.
Further the regulator has extended the Use and File procedure for most of the life insurance products.
The announcement has empowered insurers since the entire process of product approval and launch has been simplified, thereby addressing a key challenge faced by insurers. While the move provides for speedy introduction of innovative products, Insurers will now have a greater responsibility to ensure robust product development and pricing along with policyholder protection, Shanai Ghosh, Executive Director CEO, Edelweiss General Insurance Company Ltd said.
The IRDAIs announcement will bring around a conceptual change that has been long pending and much-needed to ensure the advancement of the insurance ecosystem. Insurers will now be able to develop new solutions based on individual preferences and current needs, Sanjay Datta, Chief, Underwriting Claims, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Ltd said.
The latest move comes after IRDAI had issued a circular freeing the life/non-life/reinsurers from filing product planner and other documents.
Ideally the rationalisation focus should be on coming out with a comprehensive circular on enabling `use and file for new products, fixing the company board responsible for losses suffered by policyholders and insurers liable to pay compensation and on solvency norms, an actuary had told IANS preferring anonymity.
Freeing insurers from filing product planner is of no great help but one positive move on the part of the IRDAI, he had added.
Meanwhile the insurance sector wants more from IRDAI like concession in licence renewal fee, increasing the incontestability period in the case of life insurance police to five years from three, allowing multi-level marketing.
Multi-level marketing is not prohibited outside insurance, while pyramid schemes and money circulation schemes are prohibited. Network marketing constitutes a huge population of distributors who have huge customer relationships and can help increase insurance penetration. Since they operate on a variable cost model, it will also help reduce the cost of distribution for insurance companies, C.

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