Public Insurance Registry: IRDAI’s Bold Blueprint for a Unified Digital Backbone for India’s Insurance Sector
IRDAI is working on a Public Insurance Registry to bring insurance data and services onto a common digital framework.
IRDAI’s Public Insurance Registry aims to create a unified digital backbone for India’s insurance ecosystem.
Public Insurance Registry: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has released a public consultation paper proposing the Public Insurance Registry (PIR) — a population-scale, interoperable digital registry designed to function as a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for Insurance.
According to the consultation paper, PIR is conceptualized around three core goals:
- Facilitating growth and inclusion across the insurance sector
- Building trust and transparency between insurers, intermediaries and policyholders
- Promoting affordability and financial sustainability for the market as a whole
The paper positions PIR as a “DPI-based approach” that combines technology, governance and market forces to widen and deepen financial resilience in the country, with regulatory guardrails guiding market-based risk pooling while still allowing competitive private-sector innovation.
Notably, PIR is explicitly modelled on India’s earlier successful DPI rollouts — including the JAM trinity (Jan-Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile), credit information bureaus, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the Open Credit Enablement Network, stock depositories, DigiLocker, DigiYatra, PM GatiShakti, the Unified Logistics Interface Platform, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), and Co-WIN.
Also Read: India’s Insurance Regulator Proposes Digital Platform for Policy Records
Public Insurance Registry: The Legal Backbone: Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha Act, 2025
PIR does not exist in a legal vacuum. The consultation paper states that the registry is anchored in the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025, which amended both the Insurance Act, 1938 and the IRDA Act, 1999.
Key legal enablers cited include:
- Sections 14A to 14C of the Insurance Act and Sections 14A to 14E of the IRDA Act, which govern the collection, furnishing, protection and controlled use of policy and policyholder information
- A requirement for insurers to maintain prescribed policy and claims records electronically and submit them to IRDAI or an authorized entity
- Compliance obligations under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the Aadhaar Act, 2016, and the Information Technology Act, 2000
The detailed regulations, accountability frameworks and data-sharing protocols are still to be finalized through stakeholder consultation.
Public Insurance Registry: Who Will Run PIR? The IIB-to-PIR Conversion
Public Insurance Registry: One of the most concrete institutional proposals in the paper concerns governance. IRDAI proposes to convert the Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) into a not-for-profit company wholly owned by IRDAI, which will then be tasked with building and operating PIR under a dedicated set of regulations, absorbing IIB’s existing functions in the process.
The governance model rests on six stated principles:
- Legal mandate — a clear statutory and regulatory framework with defined powers and accountability
- Independent execution — IRDAI retains regulatory oversight while a dedicated institution runs day-to-day operations
- Operational flexibility — ability to hire specialist tech, cybersecurity and product talent with agility
- Institutional neutrality — PIR will not be controlled by any insurer, distributor or technology provider with commercial interests
- Strong controls — independent oversight of data governance, privacy, cybersecurity, resilience and audit
- Privacy by design — access that is purpose-based, consent-driven, role-based and auditable
The paper also notes that the IIB Board may include rotating representation from insurance companies to bring in management expertise and coordination.
Public Insurance Registry:What Is IRDAI Trying to Achieve? The Strategic, Economic and Business Case
The consultation paper lays out PIR’s rationale across three connected dimensions.
Public Insurance Registry: Strategic importance
IRDAI frames PIR as central to strengthening insurance as a pillar of a resilient economy — enabling households to recover from shocks, giving businesses confidence to invest, supporting credit markets and transferring risk away from individuals. The paper also references a shift in market philosophy: moving insurance from an industry where “insurance is sold” to one where “insurance is also bought”, by improving trust, information flow, risk assessment and contractual clarity.
Public Insurance Registry: Economic proposition
PIR is pitched as a common information layer rather than a centralizing force — one that lets market participants discover, verify and exchange insurance information consistently, reducing information asymmetry. IRDAI expects this to:
- Lower entry barriers for new market participants by standardizing access to core insurance data
- Create economies of scale by replacing multiple bilateral data exchanges with shared infrastructure
- Strengthen financial stability by giving regulators a consistent, sector-wide view for supervision, while simultaneously reducing compliance burden on insurers
- Support a more proactive regulatory regime that intervenes early rather than penalizing violations after the fact
Public Insurance Registry: Business case
For insurers, intermediaries and reinsurers, the paper argues PIR would:
- Create a single source of authenticated insurance records, speeding up claims verification and reducing fraud
- Improve actuarial modelling, reserve estimation and reinsurance program optimization through richer industry-level exposure data
- Simplify regulatory reporting through near real-time, standardized data submission
- Shorten claim settlement timelines via linkages with external registries such as the National Vehicle Registry (VAHAN) and the Electronic Detailed Accident Report (e-DAR) system
- Provide aggregated loss data useful during natural disasters and pandemics, supporting national disaster risk financing
Public Insurance Registry: Who Does PIR Serve? Eight Stakeholder Cohorts
The paper maps detailed “user stories” across eight distinct stakeholder groups that PIR is meant to serve:
- Public and policyholders — including SMEs, employers, cooperatives, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), Self-Help Groups (SHGs), and group policy sponsors
- Insurers
- Reinsurers
- Insurance intermediaries
- Regulator(s)
- Financial institutions — banks, NBFCs, credit bureaus and credit rating agencies
- Government departments and agencies
- Researchers, academia and public policy institutes
For ordinary policyholders, the paper acknowledges a core pain point PIR aims to fix: insurance information today is scattered across insurers and channels, making it hard to compare products, assess suitability, or get a consolidated view of policies, nominees, claims and unclaimed benefits across life, health and motor insurance.
Also Read: India’s Insurance Regulator Proposes Digital Platform for Policy Records
Public Insurance Registry: Design Principles: Interoperable, Not Centralized
IRDAI is explicit that PIR should not become a single, all-controlling data silo. Drawing on India’s G20 Task Force report on Digital Public Infrastructure, the design principles include:
- Interoperable and unified, not uniform — common standards and APIs, not forced standardization
- Minimalist building blocks rather than monolithic solutions
- Federated data architecture with source-system primacy, minimizing data centralization
- Protocols, not platforms — enabling multiple competing platforms (such as the insurance industry’s own Bima Sugam) to build on shared rails
- Privacy, security and resilience by design, with data minimization and limited retention
- People-first and inclusive access, supporting physical, “phygital” and digital front-ends
Public Insurance Registry: Privacy and Data Safeguards
Given the sensitivity of insurance data, the paper devotes a dedicated section to privacy, data protection and commercial confidentiality, with access to information proposed to be purpose-based, consent-driven where required, and role-based — limited strictly to the minimum information necessary for a given function.
Public Insurance Registry: What Happens Next: Consultation Timeline
IRDAI has opened the paper for public comment across 15 detailed questions covering:
- The strategic case and public value of PIR
- Coverage of stakeholder needs and gaps in the proposed user stories
- Data architecture, repository scope and use of existing identity systems such as CKYC or PAN
- Privacy, consent and confidentiality safeguards
- Proposed roles of PIR, IRDAI, insurers and other regulated entities
- Stakeholder participation and governance
Stakeholders can respond through three channels:
- Directly on the web portal at iib.gov.in/pir
- By downloading and filling a prescribed Excel template and uploading it on the same portal
- By emailing the completed template to pirfeedback@iib.gov.in with the subject line “Public Insurance Registry: Public Consultation Response”
The paper notes that respondents should use only one submission channel to avoid duplication.
The last date for submission of comments and feedback is September 30, 2026.
Public Insurance Registry:The Bottom Line
The Public Insurance Registry represents IRDAI’s attempt to give India’s insurance sector its own version of UPI or DigiLocker — a shared, interoperable digital rail that authenticates records, standardizes data, cuts compliance costs, and gives regulators real-time visibility, while leaving product innovation and customer relationships to insurers and intermediaries. Whether this ambition translates into an operational registry will depend on the regulations that follow this consultation, and on how the sector responds to the questions IRDAI has now put to public debate.
