The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority is planning several regulatory changes as well as regulatory actions to strengthen the growing insurance sector.
“Expect a fair amount of continued regulatory activity in the insurance sector,” said IRDA Chairman J. Hari Narayan while inaugurating the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) global insurance summit here on Tuesday.
Mr. Narayan said the changes in the curriculum of agents' training would help enhance their productivity and effectiveness. There was a need to widen the number of agency branches to increase the reach of effective products. There was also a need to make the broking industry more vibrant considering that the current licensing system for broking was pretty expensive.
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Highlighting the issue of fraud management, Mr. Narayan said the industry was not doing an effective database management and that it needed to be more number based in its approach. Thus, a database driven fraud management system would be an effective solution in this regard. He also stressed the need for more pension products in the market.
Assocham President Dilip Modi said the domestic insurance market was expanding rapidly and provided a unique opportunity for innovations in terms of products and business models. The increased number of insurers had given an impetus to put in place the revised regulatory framework. “Boosted by other favourable factors such as better terms, availability of wide variety of products and tax benefits, the insurance sector could emerge as one of the fastest growing insurance markets in the coming decade,” Mr. Modi added.
An Assocham-McKinsey study on Global insurance summit: Indian insurance — developmental drive into the next decade was also released by the IRDA Chairman on the occasion.
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