IRDAI proposes public insurance registry for promoting affordability
Regulator IRDAI on Tuesday proposed a public insurance registry (PIR), envisaged as a digital public infrastructure, for promoting affordability and financial sustainability.
The proposed infrastructure is intended to enable technology, governance and market participation to work together towards wider and deeper financial resilience. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has released a consultation paper in this regard.
The proposed PIR represents a significant step towards building a more connected, transparent, efficient and resilient insurance ecosystem, with trusted information serving as a foundation for better protection, innovation and public value, the regulator said. The PIR, it added, draws encouragement from the success and lessons from digital public infrastructures (DPIs) in other sectors of the Indian economy.
The proposed registry would be a population-scale, interoperable and non-exclusionary digital public infrastructure for the insurance sector, with the objectives of facilitating growth and inclusion, building trust and transparency, and promoting affordability and financial sustainability. “Envisaged not merely as a data repository, but as an innovation platform and a strategic investment in national economic infrastructure, the PIR will strengthen consumer protection, market efficiency, insurance coverage and supporting the next generation of insurance reforms,” IRDAI said.
Further, it has the potential to lower information barriers, promote competition and enable market participants to differentiate through product innovation, pricing, service quality and customer experience, the regulator added.
The consultation paper has been conceived through a user-centric approach, anchored in the needs and challenges of diverse stakeholders across the insurance ecosystem.”It seeks to translate these needs into tangible outcomes by enabling more seamless, transparent and data-driven insurance journeys and decision-making,” Irdai said. The envisioned use cases span across eight stakeholders, including insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, and financial institutions.
PIR will adopt a DPI-based approach using technology, governance and market to support the societal goal of wider and deeper financial resilience, the paper said, and added regulatory guardrails will guide market-based risk pooling and leveraging competitive private innovation in the public interest. IRDAI has invited comments and feedback from stakeholders by September 30.
PIR draws encouragement from the success of and lessons from DPIs in other sectors of the economy such as JAM trinity, credit information bureaus, Unified Payments Interface, DigiYatra, PM GatiShakti, Government e-Marketplace (GeM), among others.
