Context: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has issued a consultation paper proposing the establishment of a Public Insurance Registry (PIR).
- Conceived as a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), it aims to address critical information gaps across the insurance sector under the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025.
About The Public Insurance Registry (PIR):
What it is?
- A population-scale, interoperable, and non-exclusionary Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) designed as a common information exchange layer. It allows authorized participants to discover, verify, and share insurance data without creating a single centralized data warehouse.
Organisations Involved:
- Regulator & Anchor: Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).
- Implementing Body: Proposed to be managed by transforming the existing Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) into a wholly owned, not-for-profit subsidiary of IRDAI.
- Ecosystem Participants: Insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, policyholders, financial institutions, government departments, and research institutions.
Aim: To bridge persistent data asymmetries, streamline verification, enhance transparency, and eliminate operational friction across the insurance value chain while keeping primary records secure with their original source institutions.
Key Features:
- Source-System Primacy (Federated Model): The registry does not act as a central data silo. The original institutions retain ownership of their underlying records, while PIR facilitates controlled access through lightweight references, governed copies, or anonymized aggregates.
- Interoperable Open Standards: Instead of forcing institutions onto a single software platform, it establishes unified data formats, standard definitions, and common digital protocols across the entire industry.
- Robust Identity Anchoring: Integrates verified identity anchors along with demographic probabilistic matching to accurately identify policyholders, assign confidence scores, and resolve duplicate profiles.
- Strict Consent-Driven Architecture: Data access strictly requires customer authorization that is specific, informed, revocable, and auditable. Access is strictly tied to clear purpose limitations and role-based permissions.
- External System Integration: Designed to connect with vehicle, health, weather, disaster and court databases, enabling automated verification without duplicating data.
Significance:
- Reduces turnaround times for claim settlements and underwriting by enabling real-time, verified access to customer history and official documents.
- Enhances industry-wide fraud detection, reduces policy duplication, and pinpoints fraudulent claims across multiple insurers through unified records.
- Provides anonymized, aggregate insights on insurance loss trends, underserved geographies, and demographics, helping design more inclusive products.
