Miffed by the growing pending complaints against insurance firms, IRDAI has issued a circular in which it has instructed insurance companies to put in place a robust mechanism in order to expedite and improve their grievances redressal mechanism.
While life insurance companies had 1200 pending complaints in FY2013-14, the pending complaints of non-life companies stood at 900 as on March 2013, shows IRDAI’s annual report. However, a report published in the ‘Mint’ newspaper says that such pending complaints have increased to 6,110 (481%) in life insurance and 2,100 (151%) in general insurance in FY 2014-15.
The insurance regulator has expressed displeasure with the rising turnaround time to redress complaints. It said, “Certain instances have come to the notice of the Authority that the complaints/grievances from the policyholders are not handled in the prescribed manner giving rise to aggravated customer dissatisfaction and escalation of the complaints to the higher authorities. It is also noticed therein that the insurers are found wanting in paying attention, sensitivity and alacrity needed to be shown while attending to the complaints from the policyholders and from other statutory agencies.”
The insurance regulator has instructed insurance companies to reduce their turnaround time to handle grievances. The insurers were asked to strictly adhere to the guidelines while handling such grievances received from policyholders and other agencies. IRDAI has also asked insurers to put in place a better system to ensure that they resolve customer grievances promptly.
Recently, IRDAI has come out with a draft regulation in which it has proposed that the insurers should publish their grievance redressal procedure on their respective websites. Also, the regulator has proposed to set up a citizen’s charter. Both these steps are meant to improve transparency, quality of services and communication between policyholders and insurers.