IRDA to educate insurance agents to curb mis-selling

With a view to curb insurance mis-selling, the Insurance regulatory and Development Authority is mulling over an idea to educate about 25 lac insurance agents in the country. The mis-selling has been a major concern for the industry over a decade, specifically after the emergence of equity-oriented insurance products. The regulator will provide specialised training to the insurance agents. After clearing the basic examination, they would be qualified licensed agent to sell insurance products.

Only during the financial year 2012-13, the IRDA received one lac complaints on mis-selling, out of which 36,702 were unit-linked insurance products; 55,866 traditional life insurance products; and the rest were health insurance, pension plans and others.

According to an official, the training, aimed at instilling seriousness among insurance agents about sales as a career and stop unfairly selling insurance schemes just to earn commissions, will be imparted according to a syllabus being specially designed by the regulator.

A team set up by the regulator is ready with the first cut of the project and IRDA is in talks with the government to involve the National Skill Development Corp. (NSDC) to create a country-wide infrastructure to train and manage institutions which will offer the specialised training to insurance agents, the official added.

The training programme is expected to be rolled out by the end of the year 2013 and about 10 lac insurance agents will be trained for the specialized skills in the first phase of its training.

Source: http://www.insuringindia.com