General insurance companies are understood to have sought an extension of the March 31 deadline for linking the policyholders’ accounts with Aadhaar number.
G Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director of New India Assurance Company, said, “It will be a mammoth task considering that we do not have the technology in place for seeding of accounts with Aadhaar and in many cases, we do not have the contact number of the policyholder to get on to the job on a war footing.
“We have, over the last couple of weeks, started collecting details from customers who have either sought to renew their existing policy or bought a new policy. Only when the technology is in place, will we be able to link the customer’s account with the Aadhaar number.”
While the company is in the process of putting in place a technology solution to address this issue, Srinivasan said, “When a policy is bought online or when an individual takes delivery of a vehicle, the dealer helps the buyer with the insurance cover. In such instances, we hardly get to see the customer. The seeding of the policy with Aadhaar is therefore, going to be an uphill task for insurance companies.”
The company services 2.7 crore policies, and all these will have to be linked with Aadhaar within the next 11 weeks.
