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IRDAI may soon raise the maximum tie-up limit for corporate agents like banks and insurance marketing firms (IMFs).
In a consultation paper, the insurance regulator has proposed allowing corporate agents to tie-up with a maximum of nine insurers instead of the present limit of three. With this, banks can sell insurance policies of nine life, nine non-life and nine standalone health insurers.
For IMFs, IRDAI plans to raise the limit from two insurers to six insurers in each insurance category.
In addition, the regulator has issued a circular with new limits on investment in mutual funds and AT1 bonds. It has also allowed separate limits for investments in alternative assets such as InvITs and REITs.
According to the new norms, insurers with less than Rs. 50,000 crore investable assets can invest up to 10% in debt mutual funds. Insurers with Rs. 50,000 crore to Rs. 2.50 lakh crore assets can invest up to 7% and those with over 2.50 lakh crore assets can invest up to 5%.
In the case of AT1 bonds, they have to ensure that their exposure is less than 10% of the total AT1 bonds of a particular bank.
Insurers can now invest up to 3% of their total corpus in debt instruments of REITs. The investment in a single InvIT/REIT should not exceed 20% of the total instrument issued by the InvIT or REIT, said IRDAI.
