While for the member, Actuary, a lot of professional actuaries including from Life Insurance Corporation have applied, for member, Distribution, three serving CMDs of PSU general insurance companies,along with other professionals, are in the race.
New Delhi: A top panel, Financial Sector Regulatory Appointments Search Committee (FSRASC), headed by Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan, will interview a few candidates tomorrow in New Delhi to select two new members, Distribution and Actuary, for Hyderabad based insurance regulator IRDAI.
While for the member, Actuary, a lot of professional actuaries including from Life Insurance Corporation have applied, for member, Distribution, three serving CMDs of PSU general insurance companies,along with other professionals are in the race.
This is for the first time the FSRASC will conduct interview, for selecting any IRDAI member, after the the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025 was enacted in December, 2025 which extended the retirement age of IRDAI members from 62 to 65.
The new act also provides for a five-year term for a member or until they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.
Earlier in Nov, 2025, the Ministry of Finance(MoF) had invited applications for the positions of two members — Actuary and Distribution — in the IRDAI as the tenures of the member (Actuary) P K Arora and member (Distribution) Satyajit Tripathy was to end in January 2026 and February 2026, respectively.
The applicant’s age should not exceed 60 years as on the date of the vacancy — February 2, 2026, for the role of Member (Distribution), and January 4, 2026, for the Member (Actuary) position, specified the advertisement .
The last date for submitting applications was December 1, 2025.
It was expected that both the members may get extension as the new act had extended the retirement age but since the government had already issued advertisement for both the posts,it couldn’t extend services of Arora and Tripathy, said the IRDAI sources.
Also, it was expected the government may reissue the advertisement for both posts of on the basis of the new act, but it preferred to stick to the old advertisement and is going ahead with the interview though with a bit of delay.
The other members of the FSRASC are-Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister,Secretary (Department of Economic Affairs(DEA) or Secretary (Departmement of Financial services) – depending on administrative role,Chairperson of the IRDAI and three outside experts of repute (to be drawn from a list of experts in the field of finance, economics, law, public administration, financial markets and related subjects to be maintained by the MoF.
In another couple of months, the tenure of Deepak Sood, member, Non-Life,IRDAI will come to an end as he will reach 62. It is believed that the IRDAI has already written to the MoF whether the government will be authomatically extending Sood’s term till 65 or advertise the post for a new appointment.