After receiving a tepid response for many months, Insurance Marketing Firm (IMF) has finally gained some acceptance among insurance intermediaries.
In just eight months, 30 new players have received licenses from IRDAI to float IMF. As a result, the total number of IMFs has increased to 34 as on August 2016. In December 2015, there were only 4 insurance marketing firms.
IRDAI Chairman, T.S. Vijayan had earlier told Cafemutual on the sidelines of an event that open architecture model in insurance distribution has been gaining traction among advisers. He said that IRDAI is promoting IMF by organizing awareness campaigns on IMF for distributors.
Last year, in March, IRDAI had introduced a new distribution channel called IMF through which insurance distributors were allowed to tie up with multiple insurers to offer a wider choice to investors.
These firms are allowed to sell insurance policies of two life, two general and two standalone health insurers. In addition, agents can sell other financial products like mutual funds and pension products by floating an IMF, subject to respective regulatory approval. Existing insurance agents will have to surrender their agency license and pass an IMF examination to get IMF license.
Distributors can submit their IMF applications online on imf.irda.gov.in.