KYC Norms in Home Insurance

Understanding KYC Norms in Home Insurance

Amid the rising number of home insurance frauds such as terrorist financing and money laundering, all home insurance providing companies have to mandatorily perform KYC checks on the policy buyer.

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India has made separate KYC norms for individual and judicial personnel that every insurance company must follow while performing Know Your Customer procedures. They are as follow:

KYC Norms for Individuals

Here are the KYC norms for individuals:

• Insurers must make every possible effort to learn about the true identity of the home insurance buyer
• Insurance company must make sure that any contract is not under any anonymous or fictitious name
• Insurance company must proceed effectively to identify the new or existing customers properly
• For identification, a recent passport size photo, identity proof and address proof are compulsory
• For existing customer, the insurer will have to cross check the previous details of the customer with the recent provided data
• Self-declaration is done when a person wants to submit the address which is different in the Aadhaar card
• Official documents are required for the people who can’t go through verification due to age, illness, injury or any other reasons

KYC Norms for Judicial Entity/Persons

Here are the KYC Norms for Judicial Entity/Persons

• Insurance company should take all measures to identify the judicial person/entity as well as its beneficial owner
• Insurance company will have to identify the legal status as well as verify it through various documents to support details such as: 
• Name, proof of existence of the entity and legal form
• Powers that regulate the client
• Address of the office of the person/entity
• Authorised ones who claim to act of behalf of the client and their beneficial owners

KYC Procedures Accepted by IRDAI

A home insurance providing insurance company can perform any of the KYC procedures:

• Aadhar Based KYC: Both online and offline verification can be done
• Video Identification: it is a paperless electronic process for identification
• KYC Is Done Digitally: As per the Money laundering Prevention rules
• By KYC Identifier: Central KYC Records Registry allot a unique number to the client
• OVD: By using officially valid documents
• PAN Card or Form 60 (Whichever is applicable) or any other document as per the insurer’s requirement

Documents Required for KYC

Here are the following documents that are required for KYC of the individual:

• Driving License
• Passport
• Aadhar Card
• PAN Card
• NREGA Card with the signature of the state government officer
• Voter’s Identity Card
• Letter issued by National population register that has Name and address of the individual

Conclusion

In order to help the insurer detect the fraudulent activity as well as counter financing of terrorism and anti-money laundering, IRDAI has taken a great initiative of enabling the process of KYC so that the insurers are aware of the true identity of their customers.