Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram recently launched the IRDA’s Insurance Repository System (IRS).

Meanwhile, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) said the insurance repository system set up by the regulator will be the first of its kind in the world. IRDA recently said five companies have been given the status of insurance repositories and provided with a licence that will be valid till July 31, 2014.

The five companies are: NSDL Database Management Limited, Central Insurance Repository Limited, SHCIL Projects Limited, CAMS Repository Services Limited and Karvy Insurance Repository Limited.

According to IRDA, the objective of creating an insurance repository is to provide policy holders the facility to keep insurance policies in electronic form. It is also to undertake changes, modifications and revisions in the insurance policy with speed and accuracy in order to bring about efficiency, transparency and cost reduction in the issuance and maintenance of insurance policies.

The repository will issue a unique code number to all policy holders, and their policies will come under that number. It maintains the history of the policy details such as claims, nominees, beneficiaries and other data.