Updated October 2026: IRDAI notified the final rules on 30 July 2026. This article first covered the June 2026 draft; it now describes the rules as notified.
IRDAI has finalised a set of rules to curb mis-selling. They make a mis-sold policy easy to trace back to the person who sold it. They don’t stop the sale itself.
The rules are the IRDAI (Insurance Intermediaries) (Amendment) Regulations, 2026, published in the Gazette of India on 30 July 2026 and in force from that date. They follow a draft IRDAI released for comment on 19 June 2026, one of several exposure drafts in the wider 2026 insurance reform wave. Three changes matter to you as a buyer.
First, from 1 January 2027, your proposal form, policy document and certificate of insurance must carry the name and functional identity of the person who sold you the policy, along with the mobile number and email address of the branch or office that sold it. This applies to policies sold through corporate agents (banks included), brokers, insurance marketing firms and web aggregators. The seller’s functional identity is based on a unique identity issued by the Central Government, and the intermediary must keep these records in a form IRDAI can access remotely. If a corporate agent sells you a policy on its own digital platform with no salesperson involved, the documents must instead show the phone number and email address of its Principal Officer. Today a complaint often dead-ends at a branch. From January, it traces to a person.
Second, a corporate agent cannot solicit insurance from a branch unless a Specified Person assigned exclusively to that branch has been appointed, and each branch must have enough Specified Persons for the business it does. The June draft had asked only for at least one per branch. Each Specified Person must hold a Letter of Enrolment issued by IRDAI and complete at least 25 hours of training every three years.
Third, corporate agents, brokers, insurance marketing firms and web aggregators that earn more than ₹10 crore in commission in a financial year, or are majority foreign-owned, must disclose to IRDAI every year their commission earned, related-party transactions, profits and dividends declared and paid. They must also publish these disclosures on their own websites. The draft had left the threshold to be set later.
Now notice what the rules do not do. Nothing in them touches how much an intermediary earns, or the gap between what a pure term plan pays a seller and what a savings-linked plan pays. That gap is the engine of mis-selling: the reason someone who walked in for term cover walks out with a plan that “also gives returns.” These rules add sunlight. They do not add a cap. Commission caps are a separate proposal: IRDAI’s consultation paper on distribution reforms, released on 23 September 2026, proposes maximum commission limits by product. That paper is still out for comment.
Why all this, now? IRDAI is redrawing its rulebook to match the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025, which the final regulations name in their statement of objective. The complaint data gives the push. Grievances classified as unfair business practices against life insurers rose to 26,667 in 2024-25 from 23,335 the year before, about 14% higher, and now make up 22.14% of all complaints against life insurers, up from 19.33% (IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25).
The risk is concentrated where most policies are sold. Corporate agents, mostly banks, accounted for 52.97% of private life insurers’ individual new business premium in FY25, with banks alone at 49.66% (IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25). The branch counter, in other words, is where the rules are aimed.
So what does this mean for you? If you buy a policy through a bank, broker or other intermediary from 1 January 2027, your policy documents will name the person who sold it and the branch they sold it from. That is a real paper trail for a complaint, and better odds the regulator can act on it. But the trail helps after the damage is done. When someone at a bank counter steers you from the term cover you came for to a bundled plan, nothing in these rules changes their reason for doing it.
The rules will make a mis-sold policy easier to trace. Walking out without one is still up to you.
Frequently asked questions
What are IRDAI’s new mis-selling rules?
They are the IRDAI (Insurance Intermediaries) (Amendment) Regulations, 2026, notified on 30 July 2026. From 1 January 2027, policies sold through intermediaries must name the salesperson on the proposal form, policy document and certificate of insurance. Corporate agents must have a Specified Person assigned exclusively to each branch that solicits insurance, and intermediaries earning more than ₹10 crore in commission a year must disclose and publish their commission income.
Do the new rules reduce insurance agent commissions?
No. They require large intermediaries to disclose their commission, but they do not cap or cut it. Maximum commission limits are a separate proposal in IRDAI’s 23 September 2026 consultation paper on distribution reforms, which is not final.
When do the rules take effect?
The regulations came into force on their publication in the Gazette of India on 30 July 2026. The requirement to tag each policy to the person who sold it applies from 1 January 2027.
Sources: IRDAI (Insurance Intermediaries) (Amendment) Regulations, 2026, Gazette of India, 30 July 2026; IRDAI consultation paper on the draft regulations, 19 June 2026; IRDAI Annual Report 2024-25; IRDAI consultation paper on distribution reforms, 23 September 2026.