Insurance products to be made Internet compatible

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MAY 20. The Insurance Act will be amended by the end of this year to ensure that insurance products can be sold online without the duplicating effort of maintaining paper transactions. This change to allow the distribution of insurance products over the Internet will be introduced along with some minor amendments that have been necessitated in the Insurance Act, said the Special Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Mr. B. K. Chaturvedi.

The Government was confident that these amendments would be in place before the first private company began operations by November this year, added Mr. Chaturvedi while speaking at a seminar on ``IT for insurance: The technology advantage'' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry here today.

Elaborating, Mr. Chaturvedi said though the passage of the Information Technology Bill ensured that documents on the Internet could be recognised as secure and digital signatures were acceptable, it contained a provision that said all insurance documents would have to be officially stamped. This provision was to be deleted.

Another provision that should be altered in the Insurance Act was Sec. 64 BB. According to this section payment for insurance products must be received in advance by the company. Payment by credit card will result in a delay of a couple of days, and meanwhile, the need for insurance cover might come up. So, the Act would have to be amended to allow payment by credit cards.

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Section  : Business
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