The year 2018 saw a change of guard at the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). After industry insider T.S. Vijayan’s five-year term came to an end, former bureaucrat Subhash C. Khuntia took office in May. Under Khuntia, Irdai’s most prominent task has been to relook at insurance products—life, health and motor. In that sense, this year can be seen as the founding year of important reforms the industry is likely to witness.
Life Insurance
From a regulatory standpoint, the work on reviewing insurance products moved ahead a few inches. In 2017, Irdai set up a product committee to review product regulation and one of the main concerns of the committee was high surrender costs in traditional plans that also bundle up as investment products.
