J Hari Narayan retires today after completing 5 year of tenure as the chairman of IRDA. In these five years, he has taken many vital decisions that have helped the insurance industry to be more customer-friendly and bring in transparency. For instance, under his guidance IRDA formed regulations to prevent frauds in the insurance sector, initiated dematerialization of insurance policies, introduced health insurance portability, issued strict regulation for web aggregators and also strict regulations for ULIP to curb mis-selling.
Hari
Narayan shared with Cafemutual that insurance regulator started examining ULIPs
more closely after SEBI raised objection on ULIPs being sold as investment
products packaged as insurance plan. Although this issue led to a turf war between
the regulators, it succeeded in precipitating a new approach in the regulatory
authority.
When asked about his post retirement plan, Hari Narayan replied, “I plan to retire and enjoy this phase of life.”
According to industry observers, T S Vijayan is expected to take up the responsibility as the new IRDA chairman.