Buy and manage insurance policies online. Here's how

If you feel keeping track of important documents is a hassle, then digitisation of insurance policies comes as a boon for you. Welcome to the e-world, where life insurance policies can now be converted into an electronic form free of charge.
All that the customer needs to do is to open an electronic insurance account (eIA).

“This will enable customers to view and manage all their policies on one platform,” said Viiveck Verma, executive director at the newly launched Karvy Insurance Repository (IR). “Another big advantage is it helps customers pay premiums on time.”

Once converted from the paper form, a customer will be given an eIA number after going through the mandatory ‘Know Your Customer’ procedure. The customer can simply quote the number and buy new policies without going through the KYC hassles each time. Branches of these repositories could also act as a touch-point for insurance companies to reach out to service their customers.

Verma said Karvy is in the process of taking the service to customers’ mobile handsets with the help of smartphone applications. Currently, only a select set of insurance products are available for online buying. IRs, it’s believed, would open up the world-wide-web for all life insurance products. The model will be replicated in the non-life insurance segment in a month or two. 

While most banking and commercial transactions have long become electronic, most customers still fear taking the online route due to hacking concerns. Verma tries to allay the fears, saying IRs have encryption in place to make sure the right customer is accessing the account.

On Monday, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) flashed the green light for Karvy and four other companies to launch insurance repositories. Others include NSDL Database Management, Central Insurance Repository, SHCIL Projects and CAMS Repository Services. The Irda will directly regulate IRs.

Life insurance companies would need to join hands with these repositories to get all existing policies digitised. IRs would charge insurance companies for conversion of existing policies, annual maintenance and transaction price based on the volumes.

Digitisation would help insurance companies save the cost of printing and despatching the policy documents, which is said to be around Rs 50-100 per policy.