key quarter for companies when sales were the highest the regulator is asking for a nonzero guarantee or positive return at surrender maturity and death which is in favour of the policyholders we have the duty to develop as well as regulate the sector unlike other regulators in the financial sector said an official at the regulator who did not want to be identified that is why we come out with guidelines place it before the working group council standing committee before taking any step but why the flipflop on persistency requirements in september 2011 it changed persistency requirement for agents after having spelt out tough norms in february 2011 that is mandating 75 persistency ratio from july 2014 the regulator lowered the levels to 50 later to keep their licence so if an agent sells 100 policies in a year he has to worry about renewing 50 policies instead of 75 as earlier mandated so was the case with lapsed policies where it reversed its decision that policies could be revived within 75 days instead of the previous twoyear window now it is back to two years a fair share of changes was precipitated by what the industry was doing but some big impact changes where the regulator went back and forth could have been avoided said sandeep ghosh managing director and ceo bharti axa life insurance instances such as treating policies as lapsed after 75 days of renewal period from 2 years earlier was not required the regulator reversed it to 2 years later is the regulator to be blamed for it all or is it facing a familiar problem of shortage of skilled workforce compound to that its disadvantageous location hyderabad when the financial capital is mumbai where other regulators are and the industrys blistering growth irdas 153 employees are burdened with the onus of regulating 47 insurance companies which generate an annual income of 45 lakh crore at more than 300 million policies also they are responsible for managing 500 insurance products filed every year nonlife industry generates 50000crore new business income and another 50000crore investment income it is probably these constraints that make them delay decisions and those that are taken are done hastily in some cases they are reluctant to allow some products that may be essential in modern finance though abused if the regulator allows us to invest in products like options or derivatives then it is possible said tr ramachandran managing director and chief executive officer aviva life to ask companies to conform to some set of guidelines without not necessarily giving them the ammunition to manage risk cant go hand in hand there is one issue where insurers are waiting anxiously bancassurance it can make or mar the fortunes of a company as it has become the key vehicle of growth for insurers by keeping their distribution costs low bancassurance is where an insurance partners with a bank to sell policies in november 2011 draft norms on bancassurance were issued