IRDAI’s Proposed Public Insurance Registry 2026: What Would Change for Insurance Agents, Insurers and Policyholders?

A Quick Summary

IRDAI proposed a consultation paper on the Public Insurance Registry (PIR) on 1 September 2026. It would work as a common digital system allowing insurers, sellers and customers to check and share insurance details in one place, such as policies, claims and seller information. However, data would be shared only with the customer's consent, and insurers would also keep their own records. PIR is still a proposal, and feedback is open till 17 October 2026. Source: IRDAI Consultation Paper on Public Insurance Registry

Ever wondered how many people are involved in just one insurance policy? And who gets affected when all the insurance information is spread across different places? Honestly, everyone.

• Customers can't easily track their policies.
• Agents get stuck with the same paperwork.
• Insurers can't see the full details of a customer.

With policies, claims, and seller details spread across so many places, tracking policies and tracing sellers has become a difficult task. That is why IRDAI has released a proposed consultation paper on the Public Insurance Registry (PIR), a digital system that would link customers, agents, insurers, and regulators on one common platform, making it easier for them to connect and exchange details, including policy, claim, seller, and other details. 

But what does PIR mean? How will everyone be affected if it gets implemented? In this guide, we will find all such answers and help you get a clear and complete understanding of the PIR. 

What Is the IRDAI Public Insurance Registry (PIR)?

The PIR is a proposed digital system that lets approved participants find, verify, and share insurance information on a single platform. It stands for Public Insurance Registry, and IRDAI has proposed it as a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for insurance. The proposal is associated with the goals of the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025, and was released on 1 September 2026.

How would PIR work?

PIR is proposed as a shared system that links different groups, including agents, policyholders, insurers, etc and lets them exchange the information they need, with the customer's consent. Let's look at the key ideas behind how it would work:

• Connects different players: The registry is proposed to link insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, policyholders, regulators, financial institutions, government departments, and research institutions.
• Source system: The insurers or institutions would link their records to PIR. 
• Common data standards: Terms like "claim", "grievance", "lapse", and "surrender" would have the same meaning across insurers. 
• Identity and verification: The proposal uses strong identity methods like Aadhaar, PAN, and CKYC. 
• Consent-based sharing: Consent should be specific, informed, revocable, and auditable. 

What information would PIR connect?

The proposal covers several types of insurance data that would be linked by the registry, and each one has a clear purpose:

• Policy details: It would help customers and insurers discover policies and service them more easily.
• Claims records: It would give access to claims history and make claims processing smoother.
• Intermediary details: Intermediary information would allow the seller to be verified and trustworthy. 
• Grievances: Tracking of complaints and taking corrective actions would become comparatively easier. 
• Policyholder identity: It would help insurers match a customer across different insurers and identify their needs.
• Product information: Customers would be able to compare and discover different types of insurance products through a single platform. 

However, the source records would stay with the institutions that maintain them, but PIR would connect different stakeholders and services to help with specific needs, such as Aadhaar authentication and any other requirements. 

But one important thing to consider here is why IRDAI proposed it; let’s understand.  

Why did IRDAI propose PIR?

The insurance industry has grown, but the way information moves between insurers, sellers, and customers is still not organised effectively. Here are the main reasons why IRDAI proposed PIR: 

• Information gaps: Insurers, intermediaries, and customers often do not see the same information.
• Scattered records: A customer with life, health, and motor policies may have to track documents across many insurers.
• Repeated KYC and paperwork: Customers submit the same documents again and again for new policies, servicing, or claims.
• Mis-selling and accountability: Some industry experts have noted that some customers find it hard to know if a seller has a good track record.
• To connect different stakeholders: Insurers and intermediaries use different formats, so this can be used to connect them under a single framework. 

Who Would Be Affected by the Public Insurance Registry? 

According to IRDAI's consultation paper, eight groups could benefit from PIR, including customers, insurers, sellers, regulators, and others. Let’s understand how:

1. Public (Policyholders and Prospects)

For most customers, insurance is hard to compare and harder to track. They may not know which seller or insurer to trust, or what they already hold. PIR is meant to put this information in one place. With the help of the IRDAI PIR, they can: 

• Compare and verify: Compare products and verify insurers and intermediaries.
• Track and discover: View policies and claims, and find benefits or unclaimed amounts easily.

2. Insurers

Insurers keep their data in different systems. PIR could give them one common view, so they can find out where people are missing insurance cover. It would also help the insurers to improve product design, underwriting, pricing, claims and customer service and would reduce operating and regulatory-reporting effort.

3. Reinsurers

Reinsurers take on a part of the risk that insurers carry. To price that risk well, they need clear and consistent data. PIR could give them standardised information on exposure and losses. It would also help them monitor the risk associated with the particular insurer, which in turn would improve their capital allocation and risk-transfer capacity.

4. Insurance Intermediaries

Agents, brokers, and other sellers spend a lot of time on onboarding and servicing. With verified data available about the agents, this could become faster. It could also help raise the quality of selling. 

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One important thing to note here is that this would also affect the POSPs (Point of Sale Persons). 

PIR for POSPs: What Should POSPs Know?

If the proposal for PIR gets approved, it may also affect POSP agents. The noticeable key changes of the Public Insurance Registry for POSP could be: 

• Identification: Your identity may need to be tied clearly to every policy you sell.
• Personal accountability: A complaint could stay connected to you, not just the company.
• Accurate records: Clean notes on what you told the customer and what they agreed to would matter more.
• Digital sales: Seller identity checks could become part of everyday online distribution.

5. Regulatory Bodies 

A regulator needs a clear and timely view of the market to supervise it well. PIR could give regulators standard information to monitor customer outcomes. It could also help them spot problems earlier and track protection gaps and customer outcomes. It would support conduct and early-warning supervision. 

6. Financial Institutions

When a bank or NBFC gives a loan against a car, home, or business, the asset is usually insured. The lender needs proof that the policy is genuine and active, as it protects the asset they have lent against. PIR could let them check this directly and help with: 

• Verification: Verify policy ownership and collateral cover.
• Lending decisions: Use insurance signals in lending.
• Risk assessment: Strengthen borrower-risk and portfolio assessment

7. Government Departments and Agencies

The government needs to know where insurance reaches people and where it does not. PIR could give departments and agencies data to study this. That can help them plan and track their programmes and also help in other key areas such as: 

• Coverage insights: Use coverage-gap and scheme insights.
• Policy strength: Support sector analysis and strengthen public policy.
• Planning: Support programme monitoring and resilience planning.

8. Researchers 

Good research needs reliable data, which is hard to find in a scattered sector. PIR could offer approved datasets with personal details removed. This could let the researchers study the sector without interfering with private customer information.

However, Insurance records are personal. So when a registry connects the insurance information across the sector, privacy is the first question most people would be concerned about. 

Data Privacy and Consent Rules That Could Apply With PIR

Here is what the proposal says regarding data privacy and consent rules of the PIR: 

• Customer consent: Consent should be specific, informed, revocable, and auditable. This means the customer should know what is being shared and why, and should be able to take their permission back. There would be a record of the consent details maintained on PIR.
• Who can access what: Access depends on the purpose. IRDAI and other authorised bodies could see certain information for supervision or investigation. Customers could see their own information, and insurers could see relevant customer data only with consent.
• Data protection steps: The proposal includes limits on how data can be used, masking of details, and audit trails that track access. 
• Commercial confidentiality: Insurers' confidential information like underwriting rules and product strategies would not be disclosed through industry-wide datasets.
• Anonymised data: For research and industry studies, the proposal would allow data with personal details removed, so trends can be studied without identifying people.

If you follow insurance industry updates, you may have heard of another digital infrastructure initiative by IRDAI, Bima Sugam, and wondered if PIR and Bima Sugam are the same. It is not, but the two are closely linked. Let’s understand how. 

PIR vs Bima Sugam: What's the Difference?

PIR is the proposed information system that connects insurers, intermediaries, and policyholders through common data standards, so details like policies, claims, and seller information can be checked and shared with consent. On the other hand, Bima Sugam is a digital insurance marketplace backed by IRDAI. It is meant to let customers compare, buy, and service insurance policies in one place.

Key Difference between PIR and Bima Sugam 

How do they work together?

Let’s understand it with the help of an example. Think of UPI and the payment apps. Just as UPI is the system behind the payment apps that we use. In the same way, PIR could provide the common data for platforms like Bima Sugam, such as verified identity, policy information, and seller details. 

Note: Bima Sugam is not yet fully operational as the digital marketplace for insurance. Publicly available reports suggest that a full operational launch is expected in late 2026. 

So PIR and Bima Sugam work on different sides of the same goal. But every big change comes with two questions: what do we gain, and what could go wrong? Let's look at both.

What Are the Benefits and Challenges of PIR?

The public insurance registry promises a lot as a proposal. But connecting this much data across the sector is not easy. So, here is a balanced look at both the benefits and challenges of PIR that you must understand. 

Potential benefits

Here are the potential benefits of using PIR: 

• More transparency: Customers could see more about products, insurers, and the people selling to them. 
• Systems that work together: Insurers and intermediaries use different formats today. Common standards would let their systems share information smoothly.
• Easier servicing: With policies and details in one connected view, requests such as renewals, changes, and claims could move faster.
• Better accountability: Sellers, intermediaries, and insurers could be tracked more clearly, which may help reduce mis-selling.
• Less paperwork: Verified details could be reused, so customers may not need to submit the same documents again every time.
• Better access to information: Customers could find their own policies and unclaimed amounts more easily. 

Possible challenges

However, IRDAI is a strong regulatory body helping the insurance industry grow and improve. Here are some challenges that can be introduced by IRDAI's proposed PIR initiative: 

• Data accuracy: Wrong or outdated records could cause real problems for customers and sellers.
• Consent management: Tracking who agreed to share what, and for how long, across millions of customers and many insurers is a time-consuming task.
• Cybersecurity: A connected system holds valuable information, so it needs strong protection against leaks and misuse.
• Wrong agent identification: If seller records are matched wrongly, an honest agent could be unfairly linked to a complaint. 
• Governance and access control: There need to be clear rules on who can see what, who runs the system, and who is responsible when something goes wrong. 

What Should Insurance Agents and POSPs Do Now?

PIR is still a proposal, so nothing is mandatory yet. But once it gets approved and operational, your records and your conduct as an agent or POSP may change slightly. Here are a few things you should consider: 

• Keep your records correct: Check that names, contact details, nominee details, and policy numbers match the documents. 
• Use your own details every time: Always use your own agent or POSP details on every proposal and application. 
• Save your sales papers: Keep proposal forms, benefit illustrations, signed papers, and product brochures in order. 
• Stick to IRDAI's Rules: Whatever the final rules are, selling according to IRDAI insurance rules and code of conduct is always recommended.
• Never mis-sell: Do not promise returns or benefits the product does not offer, and do not hide exclusions or conditions. 
• Explain the full product: Explain benefits, limits, waiting periods, exclusions, and charges in simple words to your customers. 
• Keep proof of consent: Keep a note or message trail of what the customer agreed to and when. 
• Follow IRDAI updates: The proposal may change after the feedback window closes. Follow IRDAI's updates and your company circulars for latest updates. 

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Conclusion

IRDAI’s Public Insurance Registry 2026 is not launched yet, but it shows where India’s insurance is heading today. PIR is IRDAI's proposal to connect the scattered stakeholders of insurance through one shared system, with the customer's consent and with each insurer still keeping its own records.

For policyholders, this could mean all policies in one view, less repeated KYC and a simpler claims journey. For agents and POSPs, maintaining correct records would matter much more than before, and for insurers and the regulator, shared and standard data could make pricing, servicing and supervision easier.
 

Disclaimer: The information provided in the blog is for informational and educational purposes only. While every effort has been made to provide accurate and updated information, the details may vary as per different sources. You are advised to consult qualified professionals before making any decision.

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