Those who have been selected by a government appointed panel are- Mukhmeet Singh for New Delhi, Rajiv Talwar for Noida, Rachna Khare, Pune, Pranai Prabhakar, for Ahmedabad, Sanjai Singh, for Lucknow, Manju Bagga, for Kolkata, Rashmi Ranjan Singh for Bhubaneswar, Inderjeet Singh for Patna
New Delhi: The government has selected seven official from different services as Insurance Ombudsmen.
Those who have been selected by a government appointed panel are- Mukhmeet Singh for New Delhi, Rajiv Talwar for Noida, Rachna Khare, Pune, Pranai Prabhakar, for Ahmedabad , Sanjai Singh, for Lucknow, Manju Bagga, for Kolkata, Rashmi Ranjan Singh for Bhubaneswar, Inderjeet Singh for Patna.
After completing due delligence on each of these officials , the Ministry of Finance will issue appointment letters for these officials.
There are currently 18 insurance ombudsman in different locations of the country.
Maharashtra has the highest number of Insurance Ombudsmen located in Mumbai,Thane and Pune.
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.
Earlier, apart from having existing Insurance Ombudsman scheme, insurance regulator Irdai has proposed a framework mandating appointment of an internal insurance ombudsman for insurers to address complaints involving claims up to Rs 50 lakh.
The Irdai has already released the exposure draft of the Internal Insurance Ombudsman Guidelines, 2025, has proposed the establishment of an independent and impartial review mechanism within insurers to address unresolved or escalated complaints in a fair, transparent, and time-bound manner.
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.