The Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (Irda) on Thursday has revised its guidelines that are applicable to all the online training institutes granting licences to the agents in the insurance industry.
These guidelines will be effective from June 1, 2010 and any violation, non-adherence and breach of these instructions shall be treated as violation of provisions of Irda Act, leading to penal provisions, including fine, suspension and cancellation of the approval granted by the authority from time to time, said Irda.
All institutes should have qualified permanent/part-time faculty for each stream to solve the on-line queries of the students. The number of such faculty will depend on average number of candidates undergoing training on the basis of one trainer per 500 candidates in a month, said Irda. The training institutes should have adequate arrangement in place to incorporate changes in the portal at short notice.
The fresh accreditation will be given twice in a year on need basis and depending upon the availability of good infrastructure for the purpose of hosting on-line training portal.
In order to ensure that only professional players come into such business, Irda has made certain standards mandatory for the all the applicant for fresh/renewal of on line portal.
Institutes that are engaged in online training for financial/insurance products for more than three years are eligible to apply for starting an online portal. However, this won?t be applicable for insurers to go for online portal provided they meet all the criteria laid down for online training institutes. Only companies registered with ROC, societies & trusts are eligible to apply for accreditation.
Online agency should have ISO-9000 certification for education and training and will host the training portal in an exclusive server hosted in a data center located either at its premises or at an ISP?s location based in India.