Debasish Panda, chairman, IRDAI
Raising the overall budget for Bima Sugam to Rs 200 crore from around Rs 85 crore, Irdai now plans to go for requests for proposals (RFPs) soon to appoint a service provider for the platform. The service providers will be the technological partner for creating and running a platform to provide all the services in one place
The new equity structure in the platform will be in 47.5 :47.5:5 ratio, where life insurance and general insurance companies will own a 47.5 per cent stake each while brokers, agent body will own 2.5 per cent each
Mumbai:
Debasish Panda, chairman, IRDAI, has met some of the CEOs of the insurance industry on Thursday in Mumbai to give impetus to two of the regulator’s high tech projects – Health Exchange and Bima Sugam.
While the Health Exchange platforms has been discussed with CEOs of the general insurance industry, a new Bima Sugam plan has been finalised with a few selected CEOs of life and non-life industry.
IRDA has now set a new deadline of Aug 1 for the final implementation of these projects which are `works in progress’ for some time, said insurers who had attended the meeting.
Besides Panda, Rakesh Joshi, member, Finance & Investment, also addressed the insurers.
IRDAI now wants general insurers to be part of Health Exchange platform, which is being set up by the National Health Authority (NHA), by Aug 1.
Two senior officials of National Health Authority (NHA) had attended the Thursday’s meeting,
The platform will digitize and simplify the process of filing health insurance claims.
The proposed process is not only quick and hassle-free but also reduces the cost per claim to the insurer. The policyholders and hospitals can track the claim status online. Moreover, it also enables automatic fund transfer of the claim amount.
It will help insurers have a unified platform for claims and policyholders’ medical history, which will help in reducing the number of insurance frauds.
The proposed process will save a considerable amount of time the hospitals have to spend on claims and provide them with easy access to the patient’s medical history.
Furthermore, the policyholder will be able to provide complete medical data to the hospital, track the claim status anytime and experience a faster and hassle-free claim process. The move will be beneficial for all the parties; insurers, hospitals, and policyholders.
Bima Sugam
Though the regulator is working on the plans to create a super tech platform Bima Sugam, a game changer for the insurance industry, since June 2022, some of the basic features the plans meanwhile have undergone changes for the easy implementation of the project.
Raising the overall budget for Bima Sugam to Rs 200 crore from around Rs 85 crore, Irdai now plans to go for requests for proposals (RFPs) soon to appoint a service provider for the platform. The service providers will be the technological partner for creating and running a platform to provide all the services in one place.
Earlier, it had planned to engage an Ahmedabad based tech vendour for the project.
IRDAI now wants the Bima Sugam up and running by Aug 1, said insurers who attended the meeting.
The new equity structure in the platform will be in 47.5 :47.5:5 ratio, where life insurance and general insurance companies will own a 47.5 per cent stake each while brokers, agent body will own 2.5 per cent each.
A new time line for the implementation of different parts of project has been decided during the meeting on Thursday.