Life Insurance Council, an industry association, has suggested that a bank should be allowed to sell products of 5 different insurers. At present a bank is allowed to sell products of only one life and one non-life insurance companies as an agent. The council has recommended that a bank can tie up with at least 5% insurers with not more than 25% share per insurer.
It will be presenting a note to IRDA for consideration soon, sources said, adding it is up to the insurance regulator to accept or reject the proposal.
IRDA is yet to come out with the final guidelines on the bancassurance. Some of the insurance companies such as Tata AIA, Aviva, DLF, Bajaj and Reliance Life have supported the recommendation.
Even Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram had favoured the idea of bank acting as broker for selling products for penetration of insurance in India.
At present, the policy on Bancassurance is 'one bank one insurance company (one life & one non-life)'.
In this arrangement, the bank acts as the agent of the insurance company. It is desirable that banks may act as 'Brokers' where the fiduciary responsibility of the bank will be to the policy-holder.
As insurance broker, the bank may sell the products of more than one insurance company. This will provide the intended policy-holder a bouquet of products from which he may chose the appropriate product based on his / her needs and will also prevent mis-selling.
IRDA will consider notifying banks as 'Brokers' under Regulation 2(j)(v) of the Insurance Regulatory and
Development Authority (Insurance Brokers) Regulations, 2002.
In bancassurance model, banks sell products of insurance companies & the present law allows a bank to sell insurance product of one company as an agent.
However, some banks want to convert into a "broker", beyond the present role as "agents", which will allow them to hawk the offerings of more than one insurer. So far, IRDA has sounded positive on the demand, but RBI (Reserve Bank of India) wants banks to restrict to one single company.
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