New Delhi, Nov. 5 -- The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India's (Irdai) consultation paper, released in September 2026, aims to accelerate the growth of the insurance sector, strengthen policyholder protection, ease business for insurers and intermediaries, and make regulation more transparent.

Significantly, Irdai also aims to strengthen competition, which is in line with the Competition Act, 2002 and also in sync with the Draft National Competition Policy, 2011. This calls for a level playing field and recommends that the government should not impose more restrictions on markets than necessary.

Same policies, different rules for open and closed distributors

The reforms propose to replace the existing eight types of...