Chennai, Oct 17 (IANS) The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has allowed India Post to distribute insurance products as a corporate agent for domestic life, non-life, farm and health insurers.
The new regulations bars India Post to act as a referral partner (sharing of database to insurers) of any insurance company.
The new regulation will throw open the vast network of post offices numbering around 155,015 (urban 15,871 and rural 139,144) for distribution of insurance products.
The insurance regulator has relaxed many of the conditions governing the corporate agents for India Post.
Under the regulations, each postal circle will be treated as a separate unit in order to grand independent corporate agent licence with various insurers.
The Circle Head may approach IRDA for further division in the ‘Circle’ as separate units, in the case of metropolitan areas, to obtain license to act as corporate agent.
According to the regulations, each Circle of India Post can tie up with two life and non-life insurers and one agricultural and stand alone health insurer.
However there are no caps on the number of circles that an insurer can tie up with India Post.
Presently India Post is the corporate agent for the New Delhi based non-life insurer Oriental Insurance Co Ltd and has a referral arrangement with private life insurer ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co Ltd.
