e-Health, motor insurance likely to be introduced by Dec

Health and motor insurance, which are likely to be introduced on Insurance Repository System (IRS) by December, will drive the conversion of policies into electronic mode faster, a senior executive of Karvy Insurance Repository has said.

"We are planning to roll out health and motor insurance on IRS by the end of this calender year. We expect these two general insurance segments to be the main volume driver for the Insurance Repositories," Karvy Insurance Repository Executive Director Viiveck Verma told PTI here.

At present, the Insurance Repositories (IRs) only convert life insurance into e—insurance.

"We are going to complete one year in September and with low awareness the growth is slower and mostly concentrated in the urban areas. However, we expect the growth pace to increase after the regulator makes e—insurance mandatory. We expect the decision in another one year," Verma said.

After the motor and health insurance segment is launched on IRS, it will spread equally to the rural parts of the country as well, he added.

He further said after launching the motor and health insurance segment on the digital platform, the industry will work towards introducing micro insurance on IRS.

Initially to help the industry in transformation to the insurance repository (IR), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) launched a pilot for two months from July 1, where it is mandatory for all life insurers to participate.

During the pilot launch, each life insurer shall convert a minimum of 1,000 or 5 per cent of the existing individual policies (issued in hard form and currently in force), whichever is less for each of the IRs into electronic form, according to IRDA.

The IR concept, Verma said, is first of its kind globally, however, there is a lot to be done in order to create more awareness among customers.

"After the pilot is over the five IRs, IRDA and the councils, both the life and general insurance, will together create a mechanism to promote insurance repositories in the country," Verma said.

In September last year, the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram had launched the IRDA’s IRS.

IRDA has given five companies the status of insurance repositories and the total accounts converted so far to e—insurance are about 1—1.5 lakh.

The five companies are NSDL Database Management, Central Insurance Repository, SHCIL Projects, CAMS Repository Services and Karvy Insurance Repository.




Source: The Hindu BusinessLine