Insurance | Government will crack down on insurance companies, now misleading advertisements will be curbed

File Photo Delhi: IRDAI is preparing to take strict action against selling insurance to consumers through misleading advertisements. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) is looking at tightening rules for media campaigns by insurance companies. Under this, it is proposed to make the senior management of insurance companies responsible for preparing and approving media campaigns for product promotion and in this context, IRDA has proposed amendments to the Insurance Advertising Disclosure Regulations, 2021. As per the proposed amendment, every insurance company will have to constitute an advertisement committee consisting of at least 3 members. This member will oversee marketing, insurance and compliance functions and is also accountable to senior management for creating and approving advertising for clients. Seeks suggestions from stakeholders till May 25 Insurance regulator IRDAI has sought suggestions from stakeholders till May 25 and said that in a draft issued for this, the advertising committee will have to respond to the product management committee. The Product Management Committee will examine the recommendations of the Advertisement Committee and will have the final authority to approve or reject the advertisements. It is also stated that the Product Management Committee and the Advertising Committee shall be responsible and solely responsible for the publication of these approved advertisements. Further, the Product Management Committee stated that as per the record retention policy of insurance companies, records of all advertisements shall be ensured for a minimum period of three years from the date of withdrawal of advertisements and those records shall be made available as and when required. . Meanwhile, the draft has asked insurers to put in place a suitably robust system for uploading advertisements on their websites within three days of their issue. IRDA said that insurance advertisements are considered an integral part of the product filing process. At present the process of accepting advertisements is based on the approved ‘file and use’ process and compliance with IRDA advertisement rules and circulars. Read this too Strict rules for insurance employees too Apart from this, the regulator had recently asked insurance companies to ensure that no unauthorized or confidential information related to the company is made public through social media. Employees need to be trained for this and IRDA said that an organization’s reputation is largely related to the behavior of its employees and social media should be used in a way that adds value to the organization’s business. IRDA issued information and cyber security guidelines for all insurance companies, which has a specific clause on appropriate use of social media and asked employees not to post any unverified or unverified content on any blog, chat platform, discussion forum, messenger site or social networking site. Discourages sharing of confidential information.