IRDAI mulling extending e-Vahan Bima throughout India

With an aim to provide motor insurance policies at vehicle owners' doorstep, insurance regulator IRDAI is contemplating promoting the e-Vahan Bima system throughout the country.
The Telangana government in collaboration with the IRDAI and Insurance Information Bureau of India (IIB) launched the e-Motor Insurance policy facility in the state in January.
The platform for e-Vahan Bima was established after the data sharing was facilitated by the Telangana government with the IIB.
"Now that the Government of India, MORTH (Ministry of Road Transport and Highways) has also agreed to share the nationwide data with IRDAI/IIB, e-Vahan Bima could also be extended to the rest of the country," said minutes of a IRDAI meeting.

Electronic motor insurance policies are expected to help in issuance of insurance policies at vehicle owners' doorstep.
Under e-Vahan Bima, the policies are issued in digital format which can be seen in any smartphone. Alongside, QR (Quick Response) code is issued that can be scanned for verification of policy details if need arise. An SMS based verification is also in place.

Driving a motor vehicle without insurance in a public place is a punishable offence under Motor Vehicle Act 1988.
Despite this mandatory requirement of Third party motor insurance, there are a number of uninsured vehicles plying on the road.

Apart from non-compliance of statutory provisions, it dilutes the safety net and has an impact on the compensation limits available to common man in case of an event of injury.
During the launch in Telangana, the IRDAI had said electronic motor insurance policies could be issued on-line across the country, thus, paving way for a host of benefits like faster issuance, removal of fraud, higher customer satisfaction, elimination of revenue leakages, and analytics, among others.