IRDA asks SBI Life Insurance to repay 275 crores to Policyholders

IRDA during onsite inspection conducted in December, 2010 found that M/s.SBI Life Insurance Company Limited (the Life Insurer) has offered Dhanaraksha Plus Limited Premium Paying Term (LPPT) Group Insurance Product which was a 2 year premium paying term plan, by collecting second year’s premium upfront along with the first year premium.

From the information furnished it is noticed that 93% of second year premiums were received in advance along with first year premiums in the year 2008-09, 94% in the year 2009-10 and 97% in 2010-11.Thus the premium collected is more on lines of a Single Premium than two yearly regular premiums against the approved File and Use features.

Whereas the Authority, having noticed that the Life Insurer has a single premium version of the product, viewed that when a policy holder was prepared to pay both the years’ premium upfront, the Life Insurer should have offered single premium policy that offers the same benefits.

The Authority in the Order Ref: IRDA/Life/ORD/Misc/215/09/2012 dated 18thSeptember, 2012 already made it clear that there was no informed choice to the members of the group. 

Whereas it was also noticed that 99.99% of the total premium thus procured under the Dhanaraksha Plus LPPT product was sourced by Corporate Agents of the Life Insurer belonging to SBI Group and that the Life Insurer has paid 40% of first year premium as First Year commission and 7.5% of Second year’s premium as Second Year Commission.

However, had the Single Premium version of product been offered to the policy holders, the actual commission payable would have been only 2%.Hence it can be concluded that the large scale sale of LPPT as single premium payment policy has only facilitated higher commission payments to the insurance intermediaries involved who are predominantly SBI and its associate Banks.

Whereas with the above act, the Life Insurer has adopted business practices in violation of prescribed regulatory norms viz., (a) LPPT sold as Single Premium Policy in violation of approved File and Use features,

(b) Paying excess commission to Corporate Agents over and above the eligible 2% commission they would have been otherwise eligible had the Single Premium version of the policy been offered.

(c) No informed choice given to the members of these Group Insurance Policies as envisaged under Regulation 3(2) and 3(3) of IRDA (Protection of Policyholders’ Interests) Regulations, 2002.

Thus it is concluded that these violations were detrimental to the interests of members of Group Insurance Schemes of the concerned Master Policyholders.

Whereas the Authority had imposed a penalty of Rs.5,00,000 (Rupees Five Lakhs only) vide order No. IRDA/LIFE/ORD/MISC/215/09/2012 dated 18th September, 2012 for this violation and reserved the right to examine issuance of suitable directions to the Life Insurer under Section 34(1) (b) of the Insurance Act, 1938, to identify the members / beneficiaries as the case may be of the group insurance schemes and apportion the excess commission paid to Corporate Agents, over and above the eligible 2% of commission on the product, and refund the same to the members / beneficiaries of Group Schemes by debiting the same to shareholders’ account.

Whereas the Authority, on the basis of scheme wise premium collections furnished by the Life Insurer vide email dated 20thJuly, 2012, carried out calculation and estimated that an excess payment of 44% of one installment of the regular premium received upfront along with the New Business Premium in the First Year was made to the Corporate Agents.

Accordingly, an amount of Rs.275,29,48,437 (around 44% of regular premium of Rs.625,67,00,994received in advance upfront along with the First Year’s premium ) is considered as refundable to the members / beneficiaries of the group insurance schemes under which the premiums are wrongly collected during 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 as per ‘Annexure – A’ of this order.

Accordingly, it is considered that the following amounts shown in TABLE-A shall be apportioned amongst the members / beneficiaries of the group insurance schemes and be refunded accordingly.