The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has got a new chairman: Subhash Chandra Khuntia, a former chief secretary to the Karnataka government. He will succeed T.S. Vijayan, who retired in February.
Khuntia has his work cut out both in the life and the non-life space. In the life space, Vijayan set up a committee last year to review product regulations, and the committee rightly recognised high policy lapses and high surrender penalties as reputational risks that need to be addressed. The committee came up with 12 key recommendations that include various aspects of life insurance products like better product approval mechanism, widening investments norms, revamping pension business and ways to improve persistency. Read the report here.
