IRDAI issues norms for Insurance Marketing Firms (IMF)

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India released its final guidelines on IMFs, which will be a new distribution category for insurance products. With a minimum capital requirement of ` 10 lakh, the insurance marketing firm can distribute products of two life insurers, two general insurers and two health insurance companies at any point in time. Under these norms, IMFs can market and service insurance through insurance sales persons, apart from marketing other financial products through financial service executives. These include products of mutual fund companies, pension products of Provident Fund Regulatory Development Authority, other financial products distributed by SEBI-licensed investment advisors.