Published in Mint on 1 July 2015, Written by Kapil Mehta A friend owns a house in South Delhi where she has regularly paid insurance charges to the maintenance agency. Last year her home was gutted by a fire. The insurance claim of Rs.20 lakh was denied on two counts: the insurance had been bought […]
Articles Tagged: Insurance
Irda issues new norms for corporate agents
Publish in Mint on Jun 03 2015 Recent amendments to the draft guidelines on open architecture in insurance distribution will bring respite to bank-promoted insurance companies. According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) draft that came out on 29 May, it is no longer mandatory for corporate agents to sell policies of at […]
Tied model for banking channel in insurance may continue
Published in Mint on Jun 02 2015 Recent amendments to the draft guidelines on open architecture in insurance distribution will bring respite to bank-promoted insurance companies. According to the fresh draft put out by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) on 29 May, it is no longer mandatory for corporate agents to […]
New buyers of health plans may pay more
Published in Mint on May 28 2015 Most of us tend to buy health insurance policies later than sooner, when chances of facing health related issues are higher. So, to encourage more younger people to buy health insurance, an expert committee on health insurance has recommended that the premiums reflect risk at the age of […]
Moving abroad? Settle money matters first
Published in Mint on Apr 30 2015 Nitya Narayanan, a Thrissur-based 30-year-old school teacher, is planning to move to Saudi Arabia in June this year, with her four-month-old son and five-year-old daughter to join her husband there. Though she is looking forward to the move, she is worried about winding up things here. “Apart from […]
Insurance gets a new distribution channel
Published in Mint on March 23 2015 The insurance industry is ready for a new distribution channel—insurance marketing firm, officially abbreviated as IMF. The channel will be allowed to distribute policies of two insurance firms in the same line of business, and will also be allowed to distribute other financial products as allowed by the […]
Insurance amendment bill: necessary but not sufficient
Published in Mint on Mar 11 2015, Written by Kapil Mehta If all goes as planned, the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2015, which has been approved by the Lok Sabha, will become law over the next few weeks. The first version of this bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha seven long years ago. The most […]
Financial instruments likely to cost more
Published in Mint on Mar 02 2015 Apart from mobile phone and restaurant bills, cost of financial products, too, will go up marginally due to the increase in effective service tax rate from 12.36% to 14%. The Finance Bill states: “In the new service tax rate the education cess and secondary and higher education cess […]
How we rated health insurance
Published in Mint on 17th January 2014, Written by Kapil Mehta In July 2013, after Mint had published the first health insurance rating, I received a call from an angry public relations executive of an insurer. “Why have you rated our product low?” he demanded. I pointed him to the rating criteria that were published, […]
SecureNow’s goal of disrupting corporate insurance distribution
Published in the NCR TieCon 2013 handbook. Every morning I receive a google alert for the keyword “insurance broker”. The typical news is about the insurance broker jailed for cheating his client, committing fraud and, on one day, beating his spouse! It serves as a sobering reminder of the task ahead for SecureNow. We are […]