Kathmandu: The Nepal Insurance Authority has issued instructions to all insurers to ask their individual agents to chose one insurer and submit their details under the provisions of the Insurance Act 2079.
In a circular issued to the insurers on Wednesday, NIA has mentioned that under Section 91 of the Insurance Act 2079, Sub-Section 7, there is a provision that only one insurance agent license of the same type of insurer will be issued. So, the regulatory authority has requested all the insurers to abide by the new Act.
But insurers have commented that it will not be easy for them to ask each one of the agents to choose an insurers. According to the data base of the NIA, there are a total of 144,654 licensed agents in life insurance companies only. Out of these, the number of agents in each life insurance company ranges from 1000 to 25000. It would be a tedious job for them to prepare records as per the instruction of the NIA.
The solutions is within the NIA:
The NIA can easily implement the provisions related to agents mentioned in the new Insurance Act 2079. In the agent license portal the regulatory authority can provide option to the agents to choose their insurer and work for only one agent. And the same data can be shared with all 37 insurers. There are 19 life and 18 general insurance companies in operation. As a regulator, the authority will provide the option of selection to the agents by setting a certain deadline, so that the agents will choose their insurer and all the updated details can be stored in the database of the Authority itself.
What are the other provisions related to Agency license?
According to sub-section 7 of section 93 of the Insurance Act, an insurance agent working on micro insurance can act as a micro insurance agent of more than one insurer. In sub-section 6 of section 93, there is a provision that an insurance agent of one insurer cannot act as an insurance agent of another insurer of the same type during the same period. But the insurance agent of an insurer doing life insurance business will be allowed to act as an insurance agent of a general insurer and vice versa.
