Insurance may reap benefit from Aadhaar

The use of Aadhaar for KYC purposes is expected to boost the insurance penetration in the rural areas due to the shorter turnaround time for customer acquisition, said a top official of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance.

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Sandeep Batra, executive director of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, said Aadhaar-based authe-ntication has reduced pro-cess time for each policy, allowing agents to spend his time on further leads.

“The biggest impediment in rural penetration in the was the inability of open branch offices in villages. However, Aadhaar coupled with technology has solved this issue and this would help in increasing insurance penetration,” he explained.

Mr Batra was in Hydera-bad as part of ICICI Prudential’s road show on its IPO. The insurer aims raise Rs 6,000 crore through the initial public offer. The proceeds will go to ICICI Bank, which is selling a part of its stake.

The insurer’s initial share sale, which will open on September 19 and close on September 21.