Irda Plans To Ease Corporate Agency Norms

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) is considering a liberalised version of its corporate agency norm for directors of companies and banks willing to offer agency service to insurance companies, sources close to IRDA said.

At present it is mandatory for all directors of a company to take an 100-hour course, and an exam following completion of the training.

The revised norm will waive compulsory training for all directors, instead the head of the corporate agency department, along with one director in charge of the distribution will be required to take the training and the test.

The revised version of the bill is expected to be placed at Parliament in the forthcoming monsoon session.

At present, corporate agency norm from IRDA requires every director to take a 100 hour training which is reduced to 50 hours in case the director is either a chartered accountant or a cost accountant, or an MBA.

In case, a candidate also wants to take up both life and non life insurance, the training comes in two modules of 100 hours and 50 hours for life and non-life, respectively.

For qualified candidates the duration of the course is reduced to 50 hour and 25 hour respectively. The bill does not discriminate between the director of a company or its agents, all are required to take the course and exams according to ones qualification.

The compulsory exam rule for directors was taken positively by the industry and it was one of the major reason for the corporate agency business among large corporate not taking off.

Although there is a general consensus that the norms will be changed, the industry had made representation to the regulator for a revised version of the bill.

Now that the revised version seems to have been worked out, it needs to be placed before the parliament for an approval. Industry sources close to IRDA feels that the bills will be favourably received by the parliament.