Insurance Sector (Part 2): Govt. Agencies

INSURANCE REFORMS:
When economic reforms were under way in 1990s, insurance reform committee was formed in April 1993 under the chairmanship of the ex-RBI Governor R. N. Malhotra.
The main reform suggestion of this committee were:

• Decontrolling of Insurance sector and allowing Indian as well as private players to enter this sector too.
• Decrease government's holding to 50% in LIC and GIC.
• De-linking GIC and it four subsidiaries.
• Restructuring the Tariff Advisory Committee.
• Setting up a regulatory authority for the insurance industry.

IRDAI:

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) was set up in 2000 with one chairman and five members appointed and nominated by the Government.

Functions: The authority is responsible for the regulation, development and supervision of the Indian insurance industry.

Chairman: T.S. Vijayan

Head Office: Hyderabad

AICIL:

The Agricultural Insurance Company of India Ltd. (AICIL) was set up in 2002 in the public sector to look after the National Agricultural Insurance Schemes (NAIS) of 1999. 

Functions: AIC commenced its business operations from 1 April 2003 by taking over the implementation of the "National Agricultural Insurance Scheme" (NAIS) from GIC. AIC has been designated by the Govt., of India as the "Implementing Agency" of NAIS, its country-wide crop insurance program.

Professor V. M. Dandekar, often referred to as the “Father of Crop Insurance in India”.

Chairman: Shri Joseph Plappallil

Head office: New Delhi

DICGC:

Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) was set up by merging the Deposit Insurance Corporation (1962) and the Credit Guarantee Corporation (1971) in 1978. 

Functions: Deposit Insurance was introduced to protect deposits kept with banks and ensuring financial stability. Credit Guarantee aims to persuade the banks to make available credit to not so creditworthy clients.

After the merger its objective shifts to averting panics, reducing risk and ensuring financial stability.

Chairman: R Gandhi

Head Office: Mumbai

ECGC:

A special committee under the Chairmanship of Shri T.C.Kapur was formed to examine the feasibility of setting up an effective organization to provide insurance against export credit risks. The Government accepted the recommendations of Kapur Committee and Export Risk Insurance Corporation (ERIC) was registered on 30th July 1957 in Mumbai as a Private Ltd. Company.

It was renamed to Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India Ltd. (ECGC). It is under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Chairman: Geetha Muralidhar

Head Office: Mumbai

NEIA: 

The National Export Insurance Account (NEIA) has been set up by the Government of India (GOI) and operated by ECGC to provide adequate credit insurance cover to protect long and medium term exporters against both, political and commercial risks of the overseas country and the buyer/bank concerned in the cases where ECGC was not able to provide credit cover on its own.. The NEIA trust also provides covers to banks for Buyer’s Credit transactions which facilitates foreign buyer to pay for project exports from India.