Insurance sector to witness stable growth: IRDA

BANGALORE: The "breakneck speed" of growth which the Insurance sector witnessed post 2002 is over and the sector is expected to witness "respectable and stable growth" with a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of 10 per cent in five to six years, J Hari Narayan, chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) of India, said in Bangalore on Monday.

Speaking at the sixth annual summit of Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI), he said there are apprehensions that the pace of growth in stock exchanges was 'unsustainable' unless global macro imbalances were addressed. The US-China talks and G-20 initiatives would probably be the bedrock on which growth would depend, he said.

Though awareness of general insurance products had grown in India, insurance penetration was still among the lowest in Asia, he said.

On some of IBAI's demands on renewal of policies, he said there are 296 licensed brokers and 62 renewals are pending and are expected to be cleared soon.Renewal of licence licenses in 2009 has not been as smooth as in 2006 due to complaints of inadequacies in compliances to IRDA rules by brokers, he said.

On the Swarup Committee recommendations, he said they were basically aimed at investor protection. Though he agreed that the exact quantum of commission received by the financial intermediary be disclosed, he differed with Commission on the issue of not embedding commission in the premium and adopting a fee-based structure.