Insurance to go paperless

Millions of insurance policy holders can soon get rid of their physical policy certificates and hold them in electronic mode in the same way as equity shares are held in demat account.

India’s leading insurance repository service providers have sought a meeting with the newly-appointed chairman of the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) to decide on the final blueprint for operationalising the repository services.

IRDA had shortlisted NSDL Database Management Ltd (NDML), CDSL Insurance Repository Ltd (CIRS), Karvy Insurance Repository Ltd (KIRS), Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd (SHCIL) and Computer Age Management Services (CAMS) to provide repository services to policyholders.

Our registration as repository service providers has already been approved by the IRDA. We are ready with the necessary infrastructure facilities and software for implementing this ambitious project, said Cyrus Khambata, managing director, CIRS.

He added that a few more operational conditions have to be finalised for which the repositories have sought a meeting with the insurance regulator.

Once the system becomes operational, it will emerge as a single point of contact for policyholders to hold their life, general and health insurance policies in electronic form. The policyholder would be able to view online all the insurance policies held by him by just a click of a button.

The system would also enable a policyholder to track the premium due dates and status of the policy.

These services would be provided absolutely free of cost to the policyholders while the repositories would charge a small fee from the insurance firms, added Khambata.

Initially, he said that the repositories are planning to target the life insurance policy certificates and gradually move towards general and health insurance.

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