IRDA insists strengthening actuarial departments; stresses hiring full time actuaries

IRDA has asked the 24 non-life insurers to strengthen their actuarial department and have it manned by full-timers.

Actuaries are experts in assessing the financial impact of future events. They enable financial decisions by analysing the past, modeling the future, assessing the risks and communicating what the results mean in financial terms.

As per IRDA regulations, every life and non-life insurer should have an appointed actuary. While life insurers should have a permanent official, non-life companies can have a part-timer.

Further, appointed actuaries are IRDA’s representatives in the insurance companies and cannot be hired or fired without the regulator’s consent.

There are 24 non-life insurers – six of them government owned, four non-life, one agriculture insurance company and one Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) – in India.

IRDA is also considering to scrap the system of part-time appointed actuaries in non-life sector.

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