General insurance business in India is slated to witness the long awaited and much-debated non-tariff rate regime shortly, for which the ground preparation works undertaken by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) is fast nearing completion, as per information available from concerned sources. As per the road map of the detariffing program, announced by IRDA, almost an year ago, the controlled and tariff rating structures in Motor, Fire, Engineering and Workmen Compensation (WC) are to be removed with effect from January 1, 2007. Whilst the insurance regulator has been fully seized of the intricacies of the preparatory phase of the said challenging task for about two long years, all the non-life insurers in the country, have been fully gearing up themselvesmentally and materially to enter into the free tariff regime, with all the resources at their command.
As the all important deadline (New year day of 2007) is fast approaching, all the competing insurers at the marketplace, although keen to say goodbye to the administered rate regime and launch tariff-free rate schedules of their own, their corporate managements are becoming increasingly restless on the multitude of hurdles they might encounter from all concerned, particularly in fine-tuning their respective "new look, products with decontrolled price tags". Removing insurance product pricing mechanism from the purview of controlled prices administered by the Tariff Advisory Committee is detariffing in simple language.
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