Panel to review existing norms also on the anvil
With T S Vijayan firmly in saddle, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) is hard at work to expedite product approvals. The regulator has promised to give insurance companies product approvals within 10 days. The plan involves doing away with the practice of communicating through letters – a major reason for delays – and getting queries whatsoever answered over telephone. “The regulator has promised for quick approvals of products, given that we need to re-file the whole product basket to comply with new regulations. They have already started getting product feature related queries through telephonic conversations,” said a senior industry official privy to the developments.
Some pure insurance and other traditional plans complying with the new set of guidelines are set to get approval in a week’s time, the official said. “All have started filing products soon after the guidelines got approved by Insurance Advisory Council. Now, it is expected to get the clearance soon,” said another industry official Irda rolled out the new norms for product design earlier this month. The guidelines have stipulated short deadlines of July and October 2013 for insurers to withdraw the existing products and float new sets of products. By and large, the new portfolios of insurers will have 50% traditional plans and 30% unit-linked plans, with others bringing up the rest.
Meanwhile, following a representation given by the industry through Life Insurance Council that convened last Thursday, the regulator is also considering setting up a four-member committee to review some provisions in the existing regulation that could hit the players. These include reviewing the commission structure for the sales through the bancassurance channel, including ‘credit life’ products, or policies which are bundled with loans given by banks. Currently, the commission payable to banks is capped at `50,000, which hurts companies having more than one promoter bank.
source: DNA
With T S Vijayan firmly in saddle, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) is hard at work to expedite product approvals. The regulator has promised to give insurance companies product approvals within 10 days. The plan involves doing away with the practice of communicating through letters – a major reason for delays – and getting queries whatsoever answered over telephone. “The regulator has promised for quick approvals of products, given that we need to re-file the whole product basket to comply with new regulations. They have already started getting product feature related queries through telephonic conversations,” said a senior industry official privy to the developments.
Some pure insurance and other traditional plans complying with the new set of guidelines are set to get approval in a week’s time, the official said. “All have started filing products soon after the guidelines got approved by Insurance Advisory Council. Now, it is expected to get the clearance soon,” said another industry official Irda rolled out the new norms for product design earlier this month. The guidelines have stipulated short deadlines of July and October 2013 for insurers to withdraw the existing products and float new sets of products. By and large, the new portfolios of insurers will have 50% traditional plans and 30% unit-linked plans, with others bringing up the rest.
Meanwhile, following a representation given by the industry through Life Insurance Council that convened last Thursday, the regulator is also considering setting up a four-member committee to review some provisions in the existing regulation that could hit the players. These include reviewing the commission structure for the sales through the bancassurance channel, including ‘credit life’ products, or policies which are bundled with loans given by banks. Currently, the commission payable to banks is capped at `50,000, which hurts companies having more than one promoter bank.
source: DNA
