Debasish Panda, chaIrman, IRDAI
Armed wIth specific data from Vahan, a tech platform designed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as a repository a of all the registered vehicles in the country, and Insurance Information Bureau(IIB) , which has data of all the insured vehicles, the IRDAI has asked the general insurers to talk to transport authorities of 28 states and eight union territories to provide mandatory covers for the uninsured vehicle
Hyderabad/Mumbai:
If you are vehicle owner and haven’t bought your mandatory motor third party(TP) insurance yet, don’t be surprised if you suddenly receive a challan from transport authorities of your state to pay a fine now for such a lapse and being asked to take such a cover immediately.
This will be one of the strategies, chalked out by insurance regulator IRDAI and general insurance industry to achieve full insurability of the nation by 2027 as against the earlier target of 2047.
In its latest 2-day `Bima Manthan’, a conclave of industry CEOs concluded last week, the IRDA has drawn `sharp strategies’ to be implemented immediately by the insurers to achieve full insurability of the nation by 2027 in some segments including motor.
Statistics show, there is almost a 50 per cent under insurance in motor TP insurance though its is legally mandatory for a vehicle owner to take such a cover.
Armed wIth specific data from Vahan, a tech platform designed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as a repository of all the registered vehicles in the country, and Insurance Information Bureau(IIB) , which has data of all the insured vehicles, the IRDAI has asked the general insurers to talk to transport authorities of 28 states and eight union territories to provide mandatory covers for the uninsured vehicles.
“Using Vahan and IIB data, the IRDAI has asked us to take up the defaulting cases with the state governments for covering all vehicles.’’ said a CEO of a general insurance company.
Earlier, the IRDAI has developed a scheme, where each insurer has been assigned with a state or a union territory, that has to be nurtured by the same insurer from the insurance point of vew.
The new strategy is a win win plan for both the state governments and general insurers as any state government will be happy to swing into action on the basis of specific data as collecting fines will be a huge source of income for them from the defaulting vehicle owners.
According to the Motor Vehicle Act, there is a fine of Rs 2,000 for driving without Motor TP insurance.
The general insurance industry set to get into motion with the new plans within a month and wants to complete the nationwide drive in FY 2023-24.
As on Aug 2022, the country has more than 21 crore two-wheelers and over 7 crore four-wheelers and above category of vehicles registered, Nitin Gadkari, union minister, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had informed Parliament.
Passenger vehicles retailed at 34,31,497 units in 2022, registering a growth of 16.35 per cent, when compared to 29,49,182 units sold in 2021.
The two-wheeler retail sales stood at 1,53,88,062 units in 2022, a hike of 13.37 per cent as opposed to 1,35,76,682 units sold in 2021.
Debasish Panda, soon after taking over as the chairman of IRDAI in March 2022, had unveiled his ambitious plans to achieve ‘Insurance for All’ by 2047, where every citizen has an appropriate life, health and property insurance cover and every enterprise is supported by appropriate insurance solutions and also to make Indian insurance sector globally attractive.
“Our target of ‘Insurance for All’ has shown encouraging results, 2047 is the outer limit for it. With the new eco-system in the economy including the insurance industry, we want to achieve it as soon as possible,’’ said Panda.