Kathmandu. The Insurance Board(IB) has paved the way for both life and non-life insurers to issue insurance policies in digital form. The IB has paved the way for repealing the provision of affixing postal stamp for the validity of an insurance policy and premium receipt issued in intangible form.
Earlier, the insurers were obliged to issue physical copy and affix postal stamp even after issuing the insurance policies in digital form. Now, onwards, physical copy of the insurance policy is not mandatory if its electronic or digital copy has been provided to the insured. The IB, regulatory authority of insurance industry of Nepal, has also made the insurers liable for the security of insured’s privacy and the digital data generated while issuing policies in digital form.
Issuing a circular on December 22, 2021, the IB has instructed all the insurers to issue intangible (digital) insurance policy by depositing the revenue against postal stamps in the state’s revenue account. However, the Insurance Committee has not disclosed the circular number and invoice number in the circular.
For the validity of the insurance policy, a postage stamp of Rs. 20 and a postage stamp of Rs. 5 have to be affixed on the first premium receipt. This provision has now been relaxed for the policy issued through electronic means. But the provision of postal stamp will remain same for issuing insurance policies in physical form(paper form).
Similarly, when collecting insurance premium of more than Rs. 100,000, the insurer must collect the payment only through account payee cheque or fund credited through electronic means by the proposer, life assured, the assignee, beneficiary individual or institutions. Apart from these, the IB has instructed not to accept insurance premium payment from any other person or organization.
The IB aims to encourage the digital payment service providers(PSPs) to intrude into the sales channel of insurance policies. With the provision of the postal stamp less digital insurance policies, the PPPs and other tech companies can easily offer insurance policies to any corner irrespective of the geography. It will also facilitate the insurers to offer their services directly through their agencies.
