India's PIR: Your Policies, One Digital Home

India is set to introduce a Public Insurance Registry (PIR), a digital public infrastructure designed to create a unified information layer for the insurance sector. This initiative, proposed by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), will connect insurers, intermediaries, reinsurers, financial institutions, government agencies, and policyholders.

The PIR aims to enhance underwriting and pricing by allowing insurers access to verified cross-industry data, such as credit history and claims information. Under a federated data architecture, data will remain with the originating institution while accessible through common protocols and standards.

Policyholders will benefit from a consolidated view of all their policies across different insurers, including status, benefits, premiums, and claim history. The registry will also facilitate common service requests and help customers discover unclaimed benefits or death event notifications.

Furthermore, the PIR intends to boost transparency concerning insurance distributors. Customers will be able to access information about their intermediaries, including sales quality, persistency, and any disciplinary actions. For insurers, access to anonymized, industry-wide claims and loss data will be provided for analysis.

The registry may also enable the creation of an Insurance Risk Score (IRS), a consent-based score synthesizing insurance and credit history. Additionally, it plans to integrate data from sources like the Electronic Detailed Accident Report (e-DAR) to improve motor insurance claim settlement efficiency and assist in asset recovery for stolen vehicles.