The Insurance Awareness Committee (IAC-Life) is banking on Bima Gram API to change the face of rural insurance penetration. Launched recently by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), Bima Gram API is a pioneering digital initiative designed to streamline and authenticate insurance coverage data in rural India.
Developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR), Department of Posts represented by the Centre of Excellence in Postal Technology (CEPT), and the Insurance Information Bureau of India (IIBI), the intervention comprises of a database and an API (Application Programming Interface). The Bima Gram API maps postal PIN codes to Local Government Directory (LGD) codes, creating a unified, verifiable database for rural identification. Through the Bima Gram API, insurers can now simply enter a customer’s postal PIN code to retrieve the corresponding Gram Panchayat (GP) name, ensuring instant digital verification of the policy’s rural location.
To accelerate insurance penetration in India’s rural geographies, the IRDAI has issued Rural and Social (RuSo) mandates to India’s insurers. Under the same, insurers have to cover a minimum percentage of lives, dwellings, shops, and vehicles in identified GPs and the social sector. However, over the years, insurers were finding it challenging to accurately map insurance coverage to rural areas. Most identification documents do not mention the GP name, making it difficult for insurers to accurately measure the level of insurance penetration in rural communities. This has led to cumbersome manual verification processes.
The Bima Gram API provides insurers with real-time certification and verification of rural insurance data from a trusted government source. It ensures that insurance policies emanating from rural geographies can be digitally validated, and accurately mapped with their respective GPs. Apart from reducing manual documentation, it also enhances the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of rural business reporting.
Speaking on the launch, Member, Insurance Awareness Committee (IAC-Life), said, “The launch of Bima Gram API marks a pivotal step in advancing rural insurance inclusion, and deepening and measuring insurance penetration in rural areas. Beyond helping insurers evaluate their rural penetration efforts, the API will enable us to build comprehensive baseline datasets for future policy planning and resource allocation. Bima Gram API is bound to herald a revolution in India’s life insurance history by ensuring that every rural household is served and accounted for in India’s financial safety net.”
The initiative has already undergone successful pilot testing with five insurers—including two life, two general, and one health insurance company—who have integrated, tested, and verified the functionality of the API. Full industry integration is expected to be completed soon.