The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) is planning to ask life insurers to issue policies only in a dematerialized (demat) format beyond a specified threshold premium, four people aware of the development said.
This rule will be made applicable to all insurance contracts, both for existing and new customers, these people said, including executives from insurance repositories, insurance companies and a regulatory official.
India’s insurance sector is the biggest in the world in terms of the number of policies—about 360 million are in force. This number is expected to increase at an annual average of 12-15% over the next five years, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation, a government trust under the department of commerce.
