New IRDAI norms expected to boost life insurance reach

Hyderabad: In a bid to increase the penetration of life insurance products in the country, insurance regulator, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), on Tuesday issued a circular on ‘Point of sales products and persons – life insurance’ as part of which it has said that that the point of sales person (life insurance) is also allowed to distribute micro insurance products of life insurance.

As per the IRDAI circular, the point of sale product – life insurance would mean plain vanilla type of product wherein each and every benefit is pre-defined and disclosed clearly at the time of sale.

It includes pure term insurance products with or without return of premium, non-linked non- participating endowment product (survival benefit feature also allowed), immediate annuity product and non-linked non-par health insurance with fixed benefits, among others.

The insurance regular said that the turnaround time for issuance of policy/acceptance of risk and communication of acceptance or otherwise to the customer of such policy should not be more than four working days from the date of collection of proposal at the point of sale. If the proposal is not accepted, the refund of payment should be done to the proposer within seven days from the date of decision.

It said that any life insurer or insurance intermediary that intends to engage point of sales person (life insurance) must conduct 15-hours of training, conduct an examination as well as issue a certificate to the candidate who passes the examination.

Source: The Times of India