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ANNUAL REPORT 2011-12
Indian insurance market, to draw up an action plan
for creating awareness and educating the various
stakeholders on ACORD Standards, and to draw
up a time schedule for moving the Indian insurance
industry to ACORD compliance status.
It is important that the data received by the Authority is
consistent in terms of elements captured and allows
for comparison among companies and facilitates
aggregation into reports for the industry as a whole.
To achieve this, common agreed-upon defi nitions
across industry are necessary. ACORD India
seeks to develop India-specifi c common industry
defi nitions to ensure that companies are reporting
data which is consistent and allows for comparison
and compilation. At the same time, it should also
be seamlessly aggregated and consolidated for a
meaningful analysis. The ACORD standards play an
important role by ensuring that standards adopted
by various jurisdictions facilitate consistency and
uniformity aspects of data.
Electronic Transaction Administration and
Settlement System (ETASS)
III.5.2 The Authority has initiated a project namely
the Electronic Transaction Administration Settlement
System (ETASS), which involves development of an
electronic platform whereby the treaty, facultative
reinsurance arrangements as well as coinsurance
placements shall be undertaken by the companies.
The project requires developing infrastructure and
processes for seamless integration and automation
of business processes amongst insurers/ reinsurers/
brokers covering the proposal, claims and accounts
& settlement process including setting up of payment
gateways for both coinsurance and reinsurance. The
project would provide functionality to submit proposals,
issue endorsement, settle claims, submit statement
of accounts & settlement advices, send messages
and send statements to insurers/ reinsurers/brokers
on a periodic basis.
IRDA has taken up the industry wide initiative to
involve all stakeholders in ETASS project. IRDA
has already issued ETASS guidelines, which covers
insurers, reinsurer and brokers. This system would
have seamless integration and quick settlement
of outstanding balances. It shall be owned by the
insurance industry themselves. IRDA initiated the
process of developing Proof of Concept (POC)
for this project. The POC will show details of Realtime
Platform and its bottlenecks if any. NSE-IT was
formally selected as the consultant for developing
POC for the ETASS project.
The scope of the work undertaken and completed by
NSE-IT is as under:
Develop, host and demonstrate the POC for the
identifi ed functionalities of the ETASS;
Prepare Functional Requirement Specifi cation
(FRS) document for the envisaged ETASS;
Design Solution Architecture (including Technical
Specifi cations) of the proposed ETASS system;
Work out Project implementation cost estimates
and capacity building; and
Prepare draft Project Implementation plan.
With the above developments, the Authority is in
the process of issuance of the Request for Proposal
(RFP) for the ETASS project.
Insurance Repositories
III.5.3 The Authority has issued guidelines on
insurance repositories and electronic issuances of
insurance policies vide Circular No. IRDA/ADMN/
GDL/GLD/080/04/2011 dated 27 th April, 2011 with a
view to create insurance repositories in the insurance
space. The main objective of creating an insurance
repository is to provide policyholders a facility to keep
insurance policies in electronic form and to undertake
changes, modifications and revisions in the insurance
policy with speed and accuracy in order to bring
about effi ciency, transparency and cost reduction in
the issuance and maintenance of insurance policies.
The Guidelines envisage that an insurer who wishes
to issue and maintain ‘e-insurance policies’, shall
mandatorily do so by utilizing the services of an
insurance repository, which has been granted the
certifi cate of registration by the Authority, in terms of
the said Guidelines. All insurance policies in electronic
form shall be treated as valid insurance contracts.
Every insurer has been mandated to enter into service
level agreements with all insurance repositories that
have been granted a certifi cate of registration by the
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