The new Insurance Ombudsmen are -Sarojini S Dikhale, for Mumbai,  Umesh Sinha, Thane, K Vinayak Rao, Chennai, Alka Jha, Chandigarh, Neerja Kapur, Bengaluru, Ajay K Sharma, Guwahati, Pradeep K Jain, Kochi,  G Sobha Reddy, Hyderabad,Satyajeet Ranjan, Jaipur, Ajay Kumar, Bhopal

Mumbai: A selection committee headed by IRDAI chairman Debasish Panda has selected 10 new Insurance Ombudsmen to be posted in various parts of the country including Mumbai and Thane.

These posts except for Thane in Maharashtra, which has been created  for the  first time, have fallen vacant after retirement of earlier Insurance Ombudsmen.

The new Insurance Ombudsmen are -Sarojini S Dikhale, for Mumbai,  Umesh Sinha, Thane, K Vinayak Rao, Chennai, Alka Jha, Chandigarh, Neerja Kapur, Bengaluru, Ajay K Sharma, Guwahati, Pradeep K Jain, Kochi,  G Sobha Reddy, Hyderabad, Satyajeet Ranjan, Jaipur, Ajay Kumar, Bhopal.

After due diligence, the Ministry of Finance will issue the appointment letters for all these officials afterwards.

In case any of the selected candidates fail to make it after due diligence, the committee has chosen two more names which have been kept in reserve,

Currently, there are 18 offices of Insurance Ombudsman located all over the country.

Insurance ombudsman needs to dispose of the complaint by way of an award within a period of three months and such decision will be binding on the insurance companies and its intermediaries or insurance brokers as the case may be.

Where a grievance is not resolved in favour of the policyholder or partially resolved in favour of the policyholder, the insurer has to inform the complainant of the option to take up the matter before Insurance Ombudsman giving details of the name and address of the ombudsman of competent jurisdiction.

The amount of compensation sought through Insurance Ombudsman should not exceed Rs 50 lakhs.

Recently, insurance regulator IRDAI has formed a high powered panel to review the performance of the existing insurance ombudsman scheme. The committee will be headed by Shalini Prasad, former special secretary, NITI Aayog and will have tenure of two years.

The other members of the panel are- Rakesh  Joshi, former whole-time member, IRDAI, Kuldip Singh, former insurance ombudsman, Pushpa Girimaji, consumer rights advocate and director, ministry of consumer affairs.

The panel will review the performance of the insurance ombudsman and other matters  related to enhance efficiency of institution of insurance ombudsman.

The insurance ombudsman disposed of over 92 per cent of the complaints it received from the insured during 2022-23 across India. It received 55,946 complaints during the year across its offices in the country, of which 51,625 were disposed of.