IRDA Chairman TS Vijayan said at the 16th CII Insurance Summit held in Mumbai that that the regulator is going to approve functioning of insurance repositories in India. He informed that IRDA will allow five registrar and transfer agents to carry out insurance repository business in India. However, the chairman did not disclose the names of these repositories.
Insurance repository will help policy holders to buy and keep their insurance policies in electronic form. Like mutual funds, the insurance repositories will hold electronic records of insurance policies issued to policy holders. Policyholders can merge all policies like health, motor, life insurance etc. in a single account. This service will ensure convenience and transparency, thereby reducing cost, paper work and risk of loss of documents.
Sudhin Roy Chowdhury, IRDA Member (Life), said that the repository service will enable policy holders to hold their insurance policies in demat form and make their insurance transaction hassle free. He said that India is perhaps the first country which is going to provide such service in insurance sector. Chowdhury further told Cafemutual “We are waiting for the finance minister’s approval for this and we are hopeful that it will be announced within a month.”