annual report 2009-10 - IRDA

ANNUAL REPORT 2009-10issues on the estimation procedure for compilation ofGDP emanating from insurance sector. Many issuesrelated to conceptual differences and gaps were alsodiscussed in the meeting. The Department is alsoinvolved in the development of a service price indexfor the insurance sector under a sub-committee, setup by the Ministry of Statistics & ProgrammeImplementation. R&D Department actively participatedin various conferences/seminars and presentedpapers on insurance related topics.6. Status of Information Technology in IRDAIV.6.1 The Authority has been constantly exploringthe possibility of use of Information Technology in thekey areas of its functioning in order to ensure thatquality time of the professionals is spent for analysingthe information submitted by the insurers andintermediaries. A number of IT projects have beeninitiated within IRDA during 2009-10 towards achievingthese objectives. These projects include automationof Data Collection and Business Analytics Project,revamping of Agency Licensing Process integratingall stakeholders, Integrated Grievances ManagementSystem, Vehicle Insurance Status SMS System, etc.The projects are at various stages of implementation.The features of these initiatives are briefly given below.Revamping of new Agency Licensing PortalIV.6.2 The new licensing portal integrates the variousstakeholders namely insurers, agent-traininginstitutes, examination bodies and the insurers in orderto have a better control on the licensing process.IV.6.3 The development exercise commenced inAugust 2009 after receiving feedback from variousstakeholders. Users from insurance companies haveparticipated in the User Acceptance Test. Prior tooperationalising the portal, the Authority alsoconducted a workshop, to familiarise the variousstakeholders with the portal. The new licensingportal was successfully operationalised from5 th January, 2010. The salient features of the newagency licensing system are:• Integration with all stakeholders (viz, IRDA,Insurers, Agent Training Institutes, ExaminationBodies and Insurance Agents) through UniqueRoll Number as a common identification number.• Agency Licencing Portal to be entry point in thelicensing process with registration for training.• Unique Reference Number to be generated andused throughout agent licensing process.• Direct registration with IRDA portal for applyingfor an agent licence without getting approval froman Insurer. Applicants can sponsor themselvesfor Training and Examination (This module iscomplete and would be rolled out in due course).• Data corrections can be directly made byDesignated Persons of the insurers who areresponsible for issuing the licences.• Public access to search for agents in a locality.Client desirous of having insurance cover cansearch for agent(s) in his/her locality.• Public access to view Cancelled Licences tocreate awareness about persons whose agencylicence has been cancelled.IV.6.4 A separate help desk has also been set-up bythe Authority to respond to queries of users of theportal spread all over the country. Based on thefeedback of the stakeholders, continuousimprovements are being made in the portal.Business Analytics SolutionIV.6.5 The scope of the on-going Business AnalyticsProject was further enhanced to include additional fourdepartments namely Life, Intermediaries, Inspectionand Non-life departments. The enhanced scopeincludes identification of information requirements forMarket Development and Market Conduct for all thedepartments of IRDA covered under the project. As apart of enhancement, the development of Proof ofConcept (POC) has also been included forestablishing an element of comfort and confidencebefore implementing the full-scale IT solution. Theanalytical work relating to the project has already beencompleted and the tendering process for the selectionof implementing agency has since been initiated.Implementation of ERP SystemIV.6.6 The activities in the Administration departmentare mostly done manually and also to some extentwith the help of office tools. The overall level ofcomputerisation in the department is low and the datalies scattered at different desks across manual,computerised and semi-computerised systems. Arobust ERP solution has been identified as an effective84