The insurer has to link about 2.7 crore policies with Aadhaar.

COIMBATORE: State-owned general insurance major New India Assurance Company has requested the government to provide time beyond the March 31 deadline for seeding Aadhaar numbers with insurance policies, a top official said. New India would also launch a title insurance policy for builders soon, he said.

“We have told the government that we will need time. It is a mammoth job considering that we do not have the technology in place for seeding the policy with Aadhaar,” said G Srinivasan, chairman and managing director, New India Assurance. The insurer has to link about 2.7 crore policies with Aadhaar.

The announcement on the mandatory linking of Aadahaar from the insurance regulator IRDAI about a month ago came as a “bolt from the blue for us,” he said. “We are talking to some technology firms for the Aadhaar linkage. Only when the technology is in place we will be able to link the customer’s policy with the Aadhaar number,” Srinivasan said. “It is a major challenge” for us as in many cases we do not have the contact numbers of the policyholder,” he said. “When a policy is bought online or when an individual takes delivery of a vehicle, the automobile dealers helps the buyer with the insurance cover,” he stated. “In such cases, we hardly get to see the customer. The seeding of the policy with Aadhaar is going to be an uphill task for insurance companies,” Srinivasan said. In the last two weeks, New India has started to collect Aadhaar details from customers who have either sought to renew their existing policies or have bought new policies, he said. The title insurance policy would cover losses arising out of defective land titles and compensate legal costs. Srinivasan said.

“We are ready with the product and the necessary re-insurance. Many states have digitised land records. So, due diligence of title deeds is possible now,” he stated.New India decided to come up with such a product as RERA (Real Estate Regulation and Development Act) has made title covers mandatory for the projects undertaken by builders/developers, Srinivasan said. The company posted a 20% year-on-year growth in Indian premium to Rs 16,800 crore in the nine months ending December 31, 2017. New India is focusing on retail business in a big way. The company, which has 70,000 agents, would add 10,000 agents in the current year. It would also add 250 micro offices to the existing 1400 existing such offices during the year.

