Nirmala Sitharaman,Union Finance Minister

Earlier, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said Insurance Amendment Bill, is likely to be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming Winter session

NEW DELHI: The Winter session of Parliament, which may see Insurance Amendment Bill, proposing 100 per cent FDI along with other reforms maeasures for the insurance sector will be held from December 1 to 19, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Saturday.

“The Hon’ble President of India Smt. Droupadi Murmu ji has approved the proposal of the Government to convene the #WinterSession of Parliament from 1st December 2025 to 19th December, 2025 (subject to exigencies of Parliamentary business),” Rijiju said on X.

“Looking forward to a constructive and meaningful Session that strengthens our democracy and serves the aspirations of the people,” he said.

However, the government is yet to reveal the number of Bills that will be tabled in the both the houses of Parliament during the winter session.

Insurance Amendment Bill, which proposes 100 per cent FDI in the insurance sector, is likely to be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming Winter session, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier had said.

“I hope to”, she had told when asked if the bill to further liberalise FDI in the insurance sector can be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming Winter session.

Every session of the Parliament during the last two years used to raise hope that Insurance Bill would be launched, but it never happened. Since, this time finance minister Sitharaman herself had said that the Bill may be placed, it may be a reality now,said analysts.

The three-week session will have just 15 sittings and is expected to be stormy as it opposition is expected raise many burning issues including the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 states and Union territories.

Also, whether the government is retaining all the orginal features of the proposed Insurance Bill, while introducing it in the winter session of Parliament is also not known.

The orginal Insurance Amendment Bill, which was almost prepared two years back had provisions for:
-Composite licence, by which one company can do both life and health business with one license,
-distributing other financial products like mutual funds, loans, and credit cards, creating new revenue streams and offering integrated solutions, reduced capital requirements,
-more flexibility in revising investment norms in line with market needs, potentially improving returns for policyholders.
-permit individual insurance agents to sell policies of multiple companies, eliminating the existing restriction that limits them to one life and one general insurer.

The finance minister, in this year’s Budget speech, proposed to raise the foreign investment limit to 100 per cent from the existing 74 per cent in the insurance sector as part of new-generation financial sector reforms.

“This enhanced limit will be available for those companies which invest the entire premium in India. The current guardrails and conditionalities associated with foreign investment will be reviewed and simplified,” she had said.

While the changes to the Insurance Act, 1938 (including the increase in the FDI limit) remain to come into force, the Government has already initiated steps to introduce changes to legislations which will need to be amended in light of the proposed FDI increase, and to ensure consistency within the statutory framework.

On 29 August 2025, the Ministry of Finance (Department of Financial Services) issued draft amendments to the Indian Insurance Companies (Foreign Investment) Rules, 2015 (Amended 2015 Rules). The Indian Insurance Companies (Foreign Investment) Rules, 2015 (2015 Rules) were notified by the Central Government to regulate foreign investment in Indian insurance companies and intermediaries.

The 2015 Rules were framed under the Insurance Act,1938 and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999, setting out the framework for FDI and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) in the sector as per the applicable Foreign Exchange Management regulations.

The Amended 2015 Rules have only retained the requirement of having one individual among the Chairperson, Managing Director, or Chief Executive Officer of the company as a resident Indian citizen.