Several hits, few misses in Debasish Panda's 3-year tenure as Irdai chief

Under Panda, Irdai has worked on removing entry barriers for floating an insurance firm, and called upon every class of investors to participate

- SUBRATA PANDA & AATHIRA VARIER

Debasish Panda took over as chairman of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) during one of the most turbulent periods for the insurance industry—in the middle of the pandemic—resulting in surging health and life-insurance claims.

Over the next three years at the helm, Panda introduced major reforms aimed at enhancing customer convenience and improving insurance penetration, causing some disruption for industry players. On Monday, the central government put out an advertisement inviting applications for the position of Irdai chairperson. Panda's tenure ends on March 13.

Among his major initiatives was a clarion call to achieve "Insurance for All" by 2047, whereby every citizen would have life, health, and property insurance cover and every enterprise would have insurance solutions. The push behind this was the fact that almost 25 years after the sector was liberalized, insurance penetration has not happened much.

The latest data suggests life-insurance penetration in 2023 was at 2.8 percent and non-life insurance penetration at just 1 per cent. The world average for insurance penetration is 7 percent.