New broker regulations would be out any time: IRDA

Hyderabad: New broker regulations would be out "any time" as they have already been sent for publication in the gazette, IRDA chairman TS Vijayan said here on Wednesday.

"Broker regulations would be coming... We sent it to the public gazette for publication. It should be coming at any time," he said at the 14th All India Insurance Brokers Summit here.

The new regulations would help brokers, Vijayan said.

"About this ownership, partnership, all these things are coming up. Minor changes, but it will be helping the brokers," he told reporters on the sidelines of the event.

The insurance sector in the country is set to witness significant growth and the growth would be seen in all segments, he said.

"Future growth will come in all the industries. Just look at the number of vehicles that are manufactured in India. Every year you must be seeing that the number of cars manufactured is going up. All of them need insurance. And the growth comes from there," he said.

The growth would be seen in medical and life insurance also, he said.

"Look at the medical scenario. Medical costs are going up, more and more treatments are coming up. Instead of taking from the pocket, it can be done by pooling insurance. That's the growth coming up," he said.

"Life insurance also. Look at the life insurance scenario...Lot more people are coming into the formal sector for doing business from the informal. Employment, this is growing. All of them need some life insurance. All these sectors are likely to grow. Growth is there because economy is growing," he said.

"All this growth in the economy will propel insurance industry also to grow," Vijayan said.

The rollout of the GST and demonetisation of high value currency notes led to formalisation of the economy which helps insurance industry, he said.

"These two steps (GST and demonetisation) have led to formalisation of the economy... Informal coming to the banking sector... When the formalisation happens, it helps industry like insurance... It is not informal. Insurance cannot be informal," he said.

Much higher insurance penetration, which touched 4 per cent, is required, he said.

Noting that the insurance sector is "growing very well", Vijayan said the steps taken by the government, including 'Fasal Bima Yojana' and Prime Minister's Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, have generated a positive attitude among the people towards insurance.

The challenges in the insurance regulatory front would come from the changes in the environment, including technology, he said.

"Challenges are going to be changes in the environment. In the environment what is happening is, more and more technology is getting used. Digitisation is coming. How to internalise the digitisation in the insurance process and for the benefit of the customer, that will be the thing," he said.

Digitisation would allow the reduction in costs, he said.

"Second thing is, custom-made product can be designed by the analytics of the data that is available... Pricing will be better and products will be better. So, adopting it will be going to be increasingly (important)," he said.

He also stressed the importance of adoption to the rapid advancements in technology.