new delhi the threat of changing the health insurer the new guidelines for ulips and a more responsive grievance redressal system combined to bring down the number of insurance grievances filed in 201112 the number of customer complaints reaching the insurance regulatory and development authority irda fell sharply by 95 in 201112 while the number of life insurance complaints dropped 43 from 408 lakh in 201011 to 39 lakh in 201112 the number of nonlife complaints declined sharply by 265 from 127 lakh to 93155 this is largely due to the regulatory interventions in the areas of customer service proactive offsite and onsite monitoring of service parameters and the prescription of policyholders protection board subcommittee for the insurance companies as part of authoritys corporate governance guidelines says irda chairman j hari narayan the sharp drop in general insurance complaints is not surprising roughly one out of every four general insurance complaints relate to medical policies but medical insurance portability which came into effect from 1 october 2011 made insurance companies improve their service standards a large number of health insurance portability applications have been filed in the past six months portability has picked up we saw about 5000 cases between january and march this year compared to about 1000 in the preceding quarter octdec 2011 these are customers who werent able to move earlier says damien marmion ceo max bupa health insurance the establishment of the integrated grievance management system which allows the customer to file his grievance online and track its progress has also pushed insurance companies to fall in line the system has clocked nearly 20000 complaint escalations to the authority through the web and the irda call centre the number of complaints received by the irda through post has drastically reduced which shows that policyholders are finding this new channel of complaint registration very useful says narayan what is worrying however is that the number of misselling complaints rose during the year and unlike in the past ulips were not to blame in fact narayan says the number of complaints relating to ulips has actually dropped by 50 this is also because ulips are no longer the hottest selling insurance product after the new irda guidelines that have put a cap on the fund management administrative and surrender charges traditional plans may now displace ulips as the villains in the insurance landscape unlike ulips these plans have very high charges which can be 3040 of the premium in the first few years irda is now toying with the idea of bringing down the charges of traditional plans as well but experts say this wont be easy lic which has 6065 of the marketshare still sells 70 traditional products of this almost 50 goes into government securities therefore irda is not doing anything about bringing down the charges says a senior industry source