Insurance e-commerce draft policy lauded by insurance companies

Kolkata: Insurance companies are enthusiastic about the proposed guidelines on selling and servicing of policies through e-commerce platform that aims to do away completely with any kind of physical intervention.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has come out with the exposure draft on selling and servicing insurance policies through e-commerce platform for comments before final regulation is notified.

"This will go a long way in penetration of insurance products. It is a great effort and it will induce lot of benefits to the customers in terms of accessibility of products for customers of smaller towns not encouraged by agents and advisors due to lack of adequate remuneration for them," Bajaj Capital group CEO & Director Anil Kumar Chopra said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of an insurance summit here today.

Chopra said the country's accumulated number of issued polices is 12.5 crore and coverage of population will be far low as there would be multiple policies by a single person for health, motor and life.

"So the online issuance of policy without any requirement of physical signature process with an authentication process will help customers to buy property insurance and other term policies online at ease and they would not be pushed by agents," he said.

National Insurance Corporation chairman and managing director K Sanath Kumar said the company is examining the e-commerce selling and servicing front. "Online selling was there but it lacked proper guidelines."

"The Insurance Self-Network Platform will undertake Insurance e-commerce activities in India such as selling and servicing of insurance products," IRDAI said in regulations on insurance e-commerce.