India’s insurance regulator has opened a public comment window on one of its most ambitious digital infrastructure proposals to date. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has released a consultation paper outlining a Public Insurance Registry (PIR), a proposed national data layer meant to connect insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, policyholders and government agencies. The proposal arrives as India’s insurance sector works through a broader wave of liberalization, including the shift that opened the industry to full foreign ownership under the automatic investment route.
A Registry Built to Answer India’s Data Fragmentation Problem
The consultation paper frames PIR primarily as a response to structural information gaps that ripple across the market. For ordinary consumers, The public often finds it difficult to discover, compare and understand insurance products because information on coverage, exclusions, premiums, benefits, returns, claim conditions and service standards is fragmented across insurers and distribution channels. Insurers face a parallel problem from the supply side: Insurers have limited market-wide visibility into unserved and underserved segments, protection gaps, product performance, customer needs, emerging risks and claims experience.
The same fragmentation extends upstream. Reinsurers have limited visibility into industry-wide loss experience, risk accumulation, catastrophe exposure, hazard patterns and emerging risks. IRDAI does not exempt itself from the diagnosis, noting that Fragmented and inconsistent information limits the regulator’s ability to develop a timely and holistic view of the insurance market. Government bodies working on inclusion programmes report similar blind spots, since Government departments and agencies have limited visibility into insurance coverage, gaps and programme outcomes across farmers, MSMEs, rural communities, unorganised workers, productive assets and priority sectors.
The registry proposal follows a string of structural changes at the regulator this year, including a shift toward simplified, perpetual licensing and closer tracking of how policies are sold, part of a wider effort to modernize the plumbing of the Indian insurance market rather than only its front-end rules.
Protocols, Not a Central Database
IRDAI is explicit about what PIR is meant to be, and what it is not. According to the regulator’s own framing in the consultation paper, The Public Insurance Registry is conceptualized as a Digital Public Infrastructure for Insurance (DPI for Insurance). Its goals are facilitating growth & inclusion, building trust & transparency, and promoting affordability & financial sustainability.
The model draws directly on precedent. PIR draws encouragement from the success of and lessons from DPIs in other sectors of the Indian economy such as JAM trinity (Jan-Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and Mobile), credit information bureaus, Unified Payments Interface, Open Credit Enablement Network, depositories, electronic stock exchanges, DigiLocker, DigiYatra, PM GatiShakti, Unified Logistics Interface Platform, Government e-Marketplace (GeM), Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), and Co-WIN. That lineage matters for how the registry is meant to sit in the market: Rather than centralizing insurance operations, the PIR creates the common information layer that enables a more transparent, efficient, and resilient insurance market.
Two design principles run through the proposal. The first governs how the registry relates to the platforms insurers and intermediaries already run: PIR’s proposed design is to build common protocols and shared services that support multiple solution platforms of market infrastructure institutions so that a diverse range of players can participate, compete, and innovate within the ecosystem. The second constrains how much personal data the system can hold in the first place, since Only as much data is collected as is absolutely necessary to achieve the stated purpose and that data is not retained for any longer than is required.
From Claims Settlement to a Consent-Based Risk Score
Beyond architecture, the paper builds a concrete business case around faster, cheaper claims handling. It argues that Claims processing would become significantly more efficient through instant verification of policy details and prior claims history. That efficiency case extends to linking PIR with databases outside the insurance sector altogether, where linkages with external data sources such as National Vehicle Registry (VAHAN) and Electronic Detailed Accident Report (e-DAR) would shorten claim settlement timelines, reduce disputes, and improve customer satisfaction.
The paper also works through specific user stories to justify the design. One addresses a long-standing complaint about health insurance portability, where a policyholder wants to port my health insurance policy for various reasons while preserving continuity benefits such as waiting periods served, no-claim bonus, pre-existing disease tenure, and claims history. Another targets unclaimed benefits after a policyholder’s death: PIR can also enable a centralized search on regulated platforms for unclaimed amounts based on foundational identity or demographic details of the deceased.
The most consequential proposal for underwriters may be the Insurance Risk Score. As described in the section of the paper covering user stories by stakeholder cohort, PIR may enable an Insurance Risk Score (IRS) to be a unified, consent-based risk score synthesizing insurance history (IIB), credit (Credit Information Companies (CICs)), and other permitted external data sources — as a decision-support input at underwriting.
Legal Anchors and Privacy Guardrails
PIR is not a freestanding initiative; the paper roots it explicitly in recent legislation. PIR is anchored in the statutory framework introduced through the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025. On data protection, IRDAI commits the registry to operating within India’s existing privacy regime, stating that the system will comply with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the Aadhaar Act 2016, The Information Technology Act, 2000, alongside other applicable laws.
That legal grounding carries through to how consent is meant to function inside the registry. Consent mechanism will follow the principles of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023. It should be specific (tied to a stated purpose), informed (the person will know what they agree to and why), revocable (they can withdraw it at any time) and auditable (a record will be maintained). The paper also draws a firm competitive boundary around what the registry can surface, since PIR cannot disclose any insurer-specific pricing, underwriting rules, product strategy or other commercially sensitive information, maintaining competitive neutrality across all participating insurers. That boundary echoes a wider compliance push at the regulator, which has separately moved to reshape policyholder safeguards through a dedicated fund reshaping compliance obligations across the industry.
Governance and the Path Through Consultation
Institutionally, PIR would not be built from scratch by a new body. It is proposed to convert Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) into a not-for-profit company owned entirely by IRDAI. The IIB will be tasked to set up the PIR under a separate set of regulations and subsume the Bureau’s functions in the registry. The restructuring sits alongside other recent leadership moves at the regulator, including the appointment of a new whole-time member overseeing distribution, as IRDAI works through both its data infrastructure and its internal governance in parallel.
For now, PIR remains a proposal rather than a mandate, and IRDAI has set a firm date to gather industry input. The last date for submission of comments and feedback is 30th September, 2026. Stakeholders have more than one channel to respond: Comments/feedback may also be submitted by filling the prescribed Excel template and sending it by email to pirfeedback@iib.gov.in with the subject line “Public Insurance Registry: Public Consultation Response”. IRDAI has also pointed respondents toward the material that shaped the design, noting that submissions may be submitted directly on the web portal at https://iib.gov.in/pir, a route the regulator says is anchored in the user stories and consultation questions set out in the paper itself.
If finalized as described, PIR would combine consent-based data sharing, minimal retention and a protocols-first design into a single national layer connecting India’s insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries and regulators. Whether the comment period changes those specifics will depend on the responses IRDAI receives before the window closes.
