Discuss Insurance Portability so That it can Emerge: Vijayan

The Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority of India (Irdai) today said Insurance portability will be the next big issue the industry should take up. IRDAI chief T S Vijayan said there is no initiative from the regulator on the issue of portability, but he wants the idea to be debated in various forums.

"Currently, portability is available only for health Insurance policies. The portability (of Insurance policy) is possible only if the policy is standardized. If different clauses are there, the first attempt is to make it (policy) simple and standardize the policy," Vijayan told reporters on the sidelines of a programme.

"There is no road map (for Insurance portability). Digitization of policy is the first step. Once that is done, we can think of it." He favoured the idea of people discussing it, "then only it can emerge". "I don't say tomorrow we are going to bring that. No. We will have to ignite the thought process," Vijayan told reporters on the sidelines of a programme.

He felt that the portability would help people rate or rank the company services and choose the better one. Vijayan said sale and servicing of Insurance policies through e-commerce platform will be available from October 1.

“We want to make this mandatory for high commercial policies. If a customer wants, the company has to provide it. We want to start this from October 1 onwards,” he disclosed. His assessment is the Insurance sector in the country is growing well as health Insurance is pacing up at a clip of 31%. The life and non-life Insurance segments are expanding at about 15%.