kolkata the insurance regulator irda wants risk cover providers to offer maturity benefits on every microinsurance plan to make it attractive it may allow business correspondents of banks to sell policies in the countrys rural belt to push the product insurance regulatory and development authority is revising the microinsurance guidelines to include this proposal and boost sales microinsurance which is being sold to the economically weaker section has seen a steady decline since 2010 we need simple and costeffective policies with some reasonable returns to push microinsurance said sudhin roy chowdhury member life irda a majority of the 148million micropolicies sold in fy12 was term insurance which offers no maturity benefit to the policy holders the sum assured is disbursed only in the case of death or accident or hospitalisation of the policy holder according to the policy terms irda now feels that without reasonable returns and maturity benefits it is difficult to make poor people buy risk cover so if irda changes the guidelines it will perhaps mean that insurers can sell only endowment policy and withdraw term policies from their product basket this will be difficult to implement said shashwat sharma partner at kpmg india what irda is possibly saying is that insurers will have to offer a standardised package covering different benefits including endowment benefit sharma said the regulator said it will bring in a revised set of guidelines for microinsurance in a coupe of months it issued the first guidelines in 2005 irda is planning to allow business correspondents of banks or local kirana shops to sell microinsurance policies to expand the distribution channel roy chowdhury said the mushrooming of chit funds and money circulating schemes especially in the eastern region has hampered the growth of insurance sale he said laws need to be tightened to prevent insurance agents from selling dubious collective investment schemes companies running moneycirculating schemes including saradha realty india had engaged post office and insurance agents to raise funds from public to increase their credibility