Page 5 - Insurance Times July 2016
P. 5
General Insurance
Telangana govt. orders to Selling of policies via e-commerce not accepted by all
recheck assessing agricul-
tural losses Recently, Insurance Regulatory and critical factor in deciding on a policy.
Development Authority of India (IRDAI) "We will give our input to the IRDAI on
The Telangana government wants in- had delivered guidelines on selling and the issue," he said.
surance servicing of non-life insurance policies
compa- through e-commerce plat- Financial market intermediary Bajaj
nies to forms but it was not every Capital, however, was en-
review stakeholder's cup of tea. thusiastic about the new
the man- guidelines. Anil Chopra,
National Insurance Com- Group CEO and Director,
ner in which they assess agricultural pany CMD K Sanath Kumar Bajaj Capital, said his com-
losses by putting the interests of the said even though the new pany was creating an online
farmer front and centre. guidelines bring in regulatory clarity, it
has a condensed focus on prices and platform and a mobile application at a
"If an industrialist makes losses for not on services. cost of around Rs. 3 crore.
whatever reason, insurance firms
will assess losses at his unit. But The new guidelines allow insurance in- "The insurance module of the platform
when a farmer is faced with crop termediates to provide aggregated ad- and the app would be ready by Octo-
loss, the same firms take the village visory services and insurance products ber," he said.
as a unit for assessment. This must through online platforms. Kumar said
be changed," says Telangana Agricul- the servicing of insurance policies, par- He said the guidelines have done away
ture Minister Pocharam Srinivas ticularly settlements, should also be a with any kind of physical intervention
Reddy. for a transaction. "A one-time pass-
word makes it strictly digital."
"We passed a resolution in the As-
sembly asking the Centre to craft Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh rapid in agri-
crop insurance policies that protect schemes implementation
the interests of individual farmers,"
he added. Expressing concern over slow implementation of farm
schemes in some states, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan
The Minister noted that there used Singh said he would take up the matter with state govern-
to be long hours of power cuts in the ments to speed up the work.
undivided Andhra Pradesh. "But the
TRS government in Telangana has "All states do not show equal interest in agriculture. There are states which are
provided uninterrupted power to slow in implementing the schemes. We will pursue with them and speed up the
farmers. In the next three years, the work," Singh told reporters.
power situation will improve fur-
ther," he said. For instance, the Bihar government has not given land for establishment of a
farm machinery training institute whereas Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttar
Pradesh have allotted the required land, he added.
The minister said he received around 420 queries related to various schemes
like soil health card and crop insurance during an hour-long social media inter-
action being done on a monthly basis.
The Insurance Times, July 2016 5
