Insurance Advertisements: Irdai proposes to tighten norms for media campaigns

Regulator Irdai is proposing to tighten norms for insurance advertisements by assigning higher responsibility on senior management of insurers in designing and approving media campaigns for product promotion.

In this context, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has proposed an amendment in the 2021 regulations on insurance advertisements and disclosure.

Under the proposed amendment, each insurer will be required to constitute an advertisement committee comprising at least three members mandatorily from marketing, actuarial and compliance functions of the insurer.

"The objective of the amendment is to assign higher responsibility on the senior management while designing and approving the advertisements for the consumption of the customers," said the exposure draft on which Irdai has invited comments from the stakeholders by May 25.

The committee will be required to report to the product management committee, the draft said.

It further said the product management committee would be the final authority either to approve or reject the advertisements, after examining the recommendations of the advertisement committee.

"Product management committee and advertisement committee shall be accountable and fully responsible for releasing the approved advertisements," the draft said.

The product management committee, it added, should ensure to maintain the records of all the advertisements, as per the record retention policy of the insurer, or at least for three years from the date of withdrawal of the advertisement and should be made available to the Irdai as and when called for.

The draft also ask insurers to set up proper robust systems to upload advertisements on their website within three days of release.

Irdai said insurance advertisements are considered to be the integral part of product filing procedure.

The procedure for accepting the advertisements is currently based on the approved 'File and Use' applications and compliance to Irdai advertisement regulations and circulars.