The PoS can sell comprehensive motor insurance, third-party liability, personal accident cover, travel insurance policy, home insurance policy and any other policy specifically approved by Irdai
By: FE Bureau | November 3, 2015 11:44 AM
To facilitate the growth of non-life and health insurance business in the country, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has introduced a new type of distribution model called Point-of-Sales Person.
It will be an individual who possesses the minimum qualifications and has undergone training and passed the examination as specified in the guidelines.
There are a number of people involved in undertaking simple and routine activities like solicitation and marketing of insurance policies. For example, a bulk of products in motor insurance, travel insurance and personal accident insurance require very little underwriting. These are largely pre-underwritten products where information is provided by the prospect and the policy is generated by the system. The intervention required for such a product is minimal and the training and examination for such persons could be of a lesser degree.
The guidelines suggest that there will be two types of persons who will solicit and market insurance policies. For one, an insurance agent, or specified persons of corporate agent or broker-trained persons for soliciting and marketing insurance policies or insurance sales persons of insurance marketing companies. The second will be Point-of-Sales Person (PoS) who can solicit and market only certain pre-underwritten products approved by the authority.
The PoS can sell comprehensive motor insurance, third-party liability, personal accident cover, travel insurance policy, home insurance policy and any other policy specifically approved by Irdai. Every policy sold through PoS will be separately identified and pre-fixed by the name PoS. The insurer will have to file the product with the regulator under the file-use guidelines for information.
Every PoS will be identified by the Aadhaar Card Number or his PAN Card. The persons soliciting and marketing such pre-underwritten products approved by the authority as PoS will have to be at least a matriculate. He will be sponsored to National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) by the insurance company or the insurance intermediary with whom he will work for undergoing online training specified for PoS. The fees for the online training and examination will not be over R500, which will be paid to NIELIT by either the insurance company or the intermediary sponsoring the individual.
The training module will be hosted on NIELIT website as approved by Irdai and the PoS will appear for the online examination conducted by NIELIT, which will be the examining body. On successful passing of the examination, the candidate will be issued a letter by NIELIT certifying him as a PoS.
The PoS will be made liable to a penalty as per the provisions of Section 102 of the Act. Where ever sales are done through the insurance intermediary, the latter will record the Aadhaar card number or the PAN of the PoS in the proposal form. Insurance companies and intermediaries will have to make suitable changes in their policy administrative system to capture the Aadhaar number or the PAN details of the PoS. Also, the PoS when engaged by the insurer will place business with that insurer subject to compliance of rules and procedures of that insurance company.
The insurance regulator will specify the format maintaining returns which the insurance company and the intermediary will maintain in electronic form and these can be accessed by the authority on a remote location base.
The formats will have to mention the number of policies sold and the premium collected by the PoS on a monthly basis. The policy will be tagged to the Aadhaar number as every proposal form — in paper or paperless form — will carry provision to record the Aadhaar number of the person selling the policy.
Analysts say the move will curb misselling of policies as the insurance company can keep a tab on the PoS.
First Published on November 03, 2015 12:05 am