All about e-Insurance Account(eIA)

Of late we have been hearing lot about e-Insurance Account(eIA), especially in the wake of Covid-19 related lockdown. 


So what exactly is an e-Insurance Account?

 e-Insurance Account or eIA means, "Electronic Insurance Account". Its an online account where you can hold all your existing or new insurance( Life, General or Health) policies from any insurer in electronic form just like your Demat account. It comes with unique e-Insurance Account number, along with unique LoginID and password for accessing the account.


Benefits of e-Insurance Account

- Hold all your insurance policies(from different Insurers) at one place

- No risk of loosing the policy papers

- Access to your policies at anytime, anywhere

- Single point KYC updation for all your policies(from different Insurers)

- Zero cost. Opening and maintaining the eIA is absolutely FREE


How and Where to open e-Insurance Account

An e-Insurance Account can be opened with any of the four Insurance repositories approved by IRDAI directly or while purchasing the policy from your insurer online. 

The four Insurance Repositories currently approved by IRDAI are:

- NSDL Database Management Limited (NIR)

- CAMS Repository Services Limited (CAMSRep)

- CDSL Insurance Repository Limited (CIRL)

- Karvy Insurance Repository Limited (Kinrep) 

You can open your e-Insurance Account online, since all of them provide online account opening. Fill up the application form online and submit the necessary KYC documents.

KYC documents required for opening the e-Insurance Account are as follows:

 - Proof of Identity 

 - Proof of Address

 - Proof of Date of Birth

Authorized Representative

An Authorized Representative is a person as appointed by eIA holder or policyholder at the time of eIA opening, who will be operating his/her, e-Insurance Account in case of unfortunate demise or incapability of policyholder or eIA holder to operate his account. 

It is mandatory to appoint an Authorized Representative and only a person aged more than 21 years shall be eligible to be appointed as an Authorized Representative. 

Authorized Representative will intimate the Insurance Repository about the demise of policyholder with valid proof of death and gives a request to cease his account after settlement of claim if any. The Authorized Representative would only act as a facilitator and policy benefits are payable to the 'nominee' or 'assignee' as per applicable laws.

An Authorized Representative can be changed by eIA holder or policyholder by making request to the insurance Repository. 

Also, the Authorized Representative and Nominee of the policy/policies can be same or different. 

After the submission of all KYC documents alongwith account opening form, an e-Insurance Account is opened upon successful verification of all documents. You can login to your e-Insurance Account using unique LoginID and password given to you, by insurance repository.

Physical Policy conversion to electronic form

After the e-Insurance Account is opened, you can submit request for conversion of your existing insurance policies to electronic form to your insurance repository. The request should include all policy details like Policy holder name, Policy number, Name of the policy issuing company, e-Insurance Account number etc. Some insurers might need you to submit the physical copy of policy for conversion alongwith conversion request.

Once the verification is complete, your physical policies will be converted to electronic form and credited to your e-Insurance Account. After the policy conversion, the physical copy of the insurance policy becomes NULL and void.

Also, you have the option of changing the Insurance Repository, if you are not satisfied with your current insurance repository. All the policy details and transaction history would then be transferred to the new Insurance Repository.