The Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority of India (IRDAI) on Thursday said insurance portability is the next big issue the industry should take up.

IRDAI chief TS Vijayan said there is no initiative from the regulator yet 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 standardised. If different clauses are there, the first attempt is to make it (policy) simple and standardise the policy,” Vijayan told reporters on the sidelines of a programme.

No road map yet

“There is no road map (for insurance portability). Digitisation of policy is the first step. Once that is done, we could think of it.”

He favoured the idea of people discussing it, saying, “Then only it can emerge.”

“I don’t say we are going to bring that tomorrow. We will have to ignite the thought process,” Vijayan said.

He felt that portability would help people rate or rank the services offered by various companies and choose the best one.

Vijayan said sale and servicing of insurance policies through the e-commerce platform would 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,” he disclosed. According to his assessment, the insurance sector in the country is growing well as health insurance is pacing up at a clip of 31 per cent. Life and non-life insurance segments are expanding at about 15 per cent.

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