Kathmandu, Aug. 19: Professional Insurance Agent Association Nepal
(PIAAN) has demanded that Banks and Financial Institutions (BFIs) should not be
allowed to sell insurance policy.
“The bill of new insurance act has a provision to allow the banks to
function as the insurance agent. It shouldn’t be included in the law because
the banks can create problems to the insured as they may sell the policy to
them forcefully,” said Nanda Prasad Tiwari, President of PIAAN.
“Insurance agents have 99 per cent contribution to the industry and now such
a situation is being created to discourage them and leave their profession,”
said Tiwari.
There are about 400,000 insurance agents in the country.
However, the system of banks selling the insurance policies or
bancassurance is already in practice in the country.
Tiwari argued that since many banks now run insurance companies as their
subsidiaries, it would benefit them and ring out the experienced insurance
agents in the long run.
The PIAAN also recommended including the experience earned as insurance
agent as one of the qualifications for the chairman of the Insurance Board or
Authority. It also said that the one of the qualifications of the member of the
Board of Director of the insurance regulator should be 10 years' experience as
an agent.
It said that an agent should be allowed to sell the policies of multiple
companies at a time since it is about the right of the insured individual to
choose insurance product appropriate for him.
The Supreme Court had issued its decision to allow an agent to sell
insurance policies of multiple companies.
The Association also suggested not allowing any foreign insurance
company to run business in Nepal just as a branch, they should be a formal
insurance institutions registered here.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 20 August 2018.
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