New Delhi, Nov 15: Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) officials expect at least 15 insurance companies to be operating in the country in January next year, including the five existing insurers. The Regulator has already issued licences to three private players, and in-principle approval to three others. Officials say they expect processing of the remaining six applications to pick up steam after November 20, when the second meeting of the insurance advisory committee is to be held.IRDA has asked for further details on their R1 applications from Kotak Old Mutual and Reliance for their life insurance proposals, it is understood. Processing of Tata AIG's applications for both life and non-life and Aditya Birla Sunlife is expected to take off later in the month.
Still, the Regulator is confident of issuing the next batch of licences in the first half of December. Officials dismissed claims by some new licensees that they would issue their first policy next month. They averred that a policy or two, if at all, did not exactly constitute full-scale operations.
Moreover, none of the new licence-holders have as yet filed their products with the Regulator. They will be able to issue a policy only 30 days after filing, in case no objection is raised or revision sought by IRDA. u They also conceded that delay in notifying regulations for brokers could to some extent affect plans of those companies banking on conducting their business partly through those channels. However, they pointed out that the ball lay entirely in the court of the government. Draft regulations for brokers had been sent to the ministry long back. They cannot be gazetted till the enabling amendment to the Insurance Act, allowing commission payable to brokers, is passed by Parliament, though.
Ministry officials say all efforts are being made to introduce and get the amendment passed, but comments from the budget and revenue division are still awaited on this matter.
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