SEBI’s technology leap vs the IRDAI’s sluggish digital drift

Three decades after SEBI’s tech revolution, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India is still waiting for its digital moment

- Deepak Sanchety

A year after mandating three-hour cashless claim settlement, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) still struggles to make digital reform a reality. The contrast with SEBI’s embrace of technology for the development of India’s capital markets could not be starker.

The Global Benchmark: Across advanced jurisdictions, insurance regulators have made technology the backbone of modern supervision. The US National Association of Insurance Commissioners uses predictive analytics for fraud detection and real-time claim tracking. The EU's Solvency II and upcoming AI Act blend innovation with consumer fairness. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority Sandbox has turned the country into an insurtech testbed, while Singapore’s Monetary Authority deploys real-time supervisory tech and blockchain-enabled claim audits. These regulators treat technology as an ally in enforcing market development goals, fairness and efficiency. India’s insurance regulator still treats it as an aspiration.

A Regulator Taking Baby Steps: The IRDAI often talks digital but walks bureaucratic. Its 2019 sandbox saw few projects reach the market. Initiatives like Bima Bharosa, cybersecurity guidelines, and the flagship Bima Sugam platform remain incomplete.

Bima Sugam, envisioned as a unified digital marketplace for policy issuance, claim settlement, and grievance handling, has yet to cross procedural hurdles. The issue is not ideas but urgency. Comfortable with opaque manual systems, insurers resist reforms that would increase accountability—and the regulator often lets them.

The IRDAT’s lack of regulatory control over hospitals further slows digital integration in health insurance. Oversight is indirect and routed through insurers and TPAs, leaving gaps in accountability and data flow.