India’s insurance regulator has unveiled a proposal for a Public Insurance Registry, aiming to emulate UPI’s decentralised architecture to enhance policy management, reinsurance risk assessment, and customer experience while safeguarding data privacy.
India’s insurance regulator has proposed a Public Insurance Registry, a digital layer intended to make the sector work more like the country’s unified payments system. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India said in a consultation paper that the plan would bring together policy and claims information in a way that allows insurers to remain independent while still exchanging verified data.
The idea borrows from the architecture behind Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, which linked banks and payment apps through shared standards rather than a single central database. IRDAI’s proposal would follow a federated model, meaning information stays with the original holder while being made interoperable through common rules. That approach is designed to limit the risks of concentrating sensitive insurance data in one place.
For consumers, the registry could provide a consolidated view of cover across life, health, motor and property policies, including renewals, nominees, claims and unclaimed benefits. The regulator says the system could also help cut repeated know-your-customer checks, which remain a common irritation for policyholders, while giving people a clearer basis on which to compare products and switch insurers.
The wider industry case is equally clear. According to the consultation paper, verified and standardised information could strengthen underwriting, fraud detection and risk assessment for insurers, while regulators and reinsurers could use the same data to improve supervision and catastrophe-risk planning. The proposal also envisions reshaping the Insurance Information Bureau into a not-for-profit entity wholly owned by IRDAI, with an emphasis on neutrality, independent execution and rotating industry representation. Even so, the regulator acknowledges that the plan’s success will depend on strong privacy safeguards, consent management, participation incentives and reliable interoperability.
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