IRDA to unveil norms for new products by month-end

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) would come out with guidelines for new insurance products by the month-end, its chairman J. Hari Narayan said here on Friday.

Addressing reporters on the sidelines of a function here, he said IRDA was working out the design template for various products. Guidelines in this regard were being finalised, he added. For instance, a life insurance product should have guaranteed death benefit, while a pension product must provide stipulated annuity. He said the guidelines would become regulations shortly. He hoped that these would lead to emergence of new products.

He said the new guidelines relating to health insurance were ready and would be in place by this month-end or January, while those on bancassurance would be issued by the end of January 2013. IRDA was also working on micro-insurance regulations.

Mr. Narayan said the insurance industry would have to remodel policies and products to meet the demands of newer markets.

On the Government decisionto allow Life Insurance Corporation to invest up to 30 per cent in a listed company, he said that though it was not in conformity with the Insurance Act, the Government had power and the law ministry said it was legal.

He said the premium collected by the insurance sector in the country was a little less than five per cent of India’s GDP and termed it as “healthy”.

In the non-life segment, the growth was around 20 per cent.

He said the life sector, which was facing decline in growth in the last few years, was stabilising and he expected it to move into positive growth territory this year.