Bima Sugam Portal: Buying Insurance Will Be as Easy as UPI! New Bima Sugam Portal Launched, All Policies in One Click

Bima Sugam Portal: Just as UPI revolutionized India’s banking system by enabling instant payments, a similar transformation is poised to happen in the insurance sector with the launch of Bima Sugam. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has launched Bima Sugam, a one-stop insurance marketplace. This portal is expected to resolve systemic issues in the insurance sector and make insurance more accessible to the common person.

Currently, insurance penetration in India is very low. The primary reasons are issues like fraud, a lack of transparency, and other procedural problems. The Bima Sugam portal aims to address these issues, making insurance products cheaper, better, and more attractive to a wider audience.

What is Bima Sugam?

Bima Sugam is a regulator-backed Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), much like UPI. It is designed as a one-stop digital marketplace for all insurance needs, including life, health, motor, travel, and property insurance. Essentially, it is a single platform where customers can view and purchase any insurance policy. All insurance companies will eventually be required to join this platform, ensuring customers have easy access and a wide range of choices.

The ‘UPI Moment’ for Insurance

Bima Sugam is being viewed as the UPI equivalent for the insurance sector. It will be a standardized, neutral, and inter-operable platform. Just as UPI allows seamless transactions between different bank accounts, Bima Sugam will enable similar interoperability in the insurance domain, simplifying processes for customers.

Key Objectives of the Portal

The primary goals of the Bima Sugam portal are:

• Simplification and Access: To simplify insurance products and make them easily accessible to all citizens, removing doubts about fraud, overpayment of premiums, or cheating.
• Increase Penetration: To significantly increase insurance penetration in India. The ultimate aim is to provide “insurance for all” by the year 2047.
• Consolidation: To consolidate the currently fragmented ecosystem of insurer portals, agent portals, and repositories into a single platform.
• Trust and Transparency: To build consumer trust through standardized processes for buying, renewing, servicing, and, crucially, claiming policies.

Ownership and Governance

Bima Sugam will be managed by the Bima Sugam India Federation, a not-for-profit industry body. The owners and shareholders of this platform will be the insurance companies themselves, including the Life Insurance Council and the General Insurance Council. The government and IRDAI will provide oversight to ensure the platform is not misused.

Services and Phased Rollout

The portal is being launched in phases. Initially, users can compare the features of different policies. In the future, it will allow side-by-side product comparisons for all types of insurance.

Key features will include:

• Policy Repository: A single account where a user can see all their policies (e.g., from ICICI, Max, LIC) in one place.
• Purchase and Renewal: Users can buy and renew all policies through this single portal.
• Claims Settlement: Claims can be filed directly on the portal, with a target settlement time of 72 hours.
• Digital Process: The platform will be paperless, utilizing e-KYC and secure digital storage.

The transactional phase (allowing purchase and renewal) is expected to go live by December 2025. A full-scale rollout, including claims and grievance redressal, is planned from 2026.

Benefits for Consumers

• Transparency in policies and easy price/feature comparison.
• A single dashboard to manage all policies.
• Faster and simpler claim settlements.
• Elimination of paperwork.

Despite its immense promise, the platform faces challenges such as ensuring robust governance, protecting data privacy, and managing the impact on traditional insurance intermediaries. If Bima Sugam successfully navigates these challenges, it will undoubtedly usher in a new era for the Indian insurance industry.