Insurance Regulator Update

The first phase of Bima Sugam - an ambitious project of the insurance regulator to create an Amazon-like one-stop digital platform for buying, selling, and servicing insurance policies - is expected to be rolled out in the mid of this year instead of April announced earlier, a source privy to the development said.

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1st phase of Bima Sugam likely to be rolled out mid-2025

In June of 2024, the IRDAI chairman Debasish Panda had said that the first phase of the project will be launched in April 2025.

The idea, initially proposed by the insurance regulator in 2022, has missed several projected launch dates, including January 2023, June 2024, August 2024, and April 2025.

Often hailed as the UPI moment for the insurance industry, Bima Sugam is going to be a public digital infrastructure, keeping the policyholder at the core to offer an end-to-end journey of the lifecycle of the product and beyond.

The platform's aim is to democratize insurance in India, potentially becoming the first of its kind globally.

IRDAI widens scope of sandbox framework to fuel innovation

IRDAI has expanded the scope of regulatory sandbox framework to encourage proposals that foster innovation, improve efficiency and ease of doing business.

The IRDAI (Regulatory Sandbox) Regulations, 2025 is now more of principle-based whereby operational aspects will be issued through a master circular, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) said in a statement.

"A notable addition is an enabling provision to file Inter-Regulatory Sandbox proposals, cutting across more than one financial sector," the regulator said.

Regulatory sandbox usually refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which regulators may (or may not) permit certain relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing.

Further, regulations on maintenance of information by the regulated entities and sharing of information too have been consolidated by the regulator.