Paperless Insurance and Its Benefits

• Get quotes from multiple insurers
• Cashless garages available
• Buy/renew your policy online without hassles

From paying money to vegetable vendors, ordering online food to purchasing bikes and insurances, everything today is online. The idea of ‘Digital India’ has become so popular that people today are becoming more accustomed to cashless and paperless transactions. When you can buy and sell even a house online with digital documents and signature, going to old school way where every document was kept in the hard copy form is a big no.

The paperless and cashless transaction become so popular because the basic idea was to promote to save our nature. It is no surprise that we are destroying trees and agricultural lands to build houses, tech parks, amusement parks, offices, apartments, etc. So in order to restrain from cutting off more trees for the manufacture of papers, paperless transactions were introduced. It’s a digital paper where every contract or agreement is written down just like a normal paper but it’s processed digitally by cutting down the usage of normal paper as much as possible.

When this was acceptable to every other segment, then why not for insurance segment! The IRDAI, introduced the online system for insurance policy few years back and it has definitely proved to be a blessing to both the policyholder and the insurance company. The introduction of the Insurance Repository System by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) is one step forward towards a Digital India. The completely digital method of policy purchase, renewal and claim settlement will be helpful for policy holders to keep a tab on their insurances on regular basis. The convenience that the Insurance Repository offers to the customers with transparency at every level is a much needed advancement for the overall growth of the segment. All the facilities are available for free of cost.

Insurance repository:

The Insurance Repository System is a system where the policy holders can purchasing and store various types of insurance policies in electronic format that can be accessed on mobile phones or computers. This facility was first introduced in 2014, and as pilot only life insurance policies were included in the first phase. As paperless insurance gained popularity and became a little common with the general public, the facility was later extended to non-life policies, such as health and motor insurances.

The ‘know about’ of paperless insurance:

• Any customer can accesses the insurance repository web page and enter his/her details to get registered following which an e insurance account will be created. There is no cost applicable for registration.
• Once the user registers on this insurance repository web-page, a unique e-Account number will be created for the user. It should be noted that a customer can only open one e-Account for all the insurance he/she owns.
• The next step to follow is to verify all KYC details and upload it in the account. When the buyer purchases a new insurance policy, he/she only has to furnish the e-Insurance account number as rest of the documents will be verified online.
• On completion of all the above steps, the account will update all the details on insurance repository such as status of premiums, claims, loans, bonuses, net asset value, nominee assignment, annual statements, etc. All payments and renewal details can be viewed by the customer on this common platform. The user can view details of discounts and accrued bonuses here.
• Insurance agents can also view details of policies that were issued through them on the insurance repository.
• If the policyholder wants to raise complaints or report some policy-related queries, he/she can use this platform to communicate with the insurance provider.
• The system also allows each policyholder to have an authorized representative/beneficiary who will have access to the account simultaneously in the event of grievous injury or death of the policyholder.

Paperless insurance has provided policyholders with better and transparent experience while purchasing and renewing their insurance policies. Anyone can buy an insurance online and all the documents and transactions can be digitally approved within few minutes. The e-Insurance account also lends a layer of automation and a lot of manual work at the back-end are processed automatically on the system. The convenience of being able to buy an insurance policy, make payments and avail the policy documents without the hassle of paperwork has made the whole process more streamlined and time saving.