Hyderabad, March 13 To bring transparency in the management of finances and accounts in life insurance companies, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) on Friday tightened expenses and accounting norms.

It has asked the companies to provide details of scrip-wise investments made under different categories. Pointing out that “expenditure management is very crucial for the life insurance industry at this juncture”, the regulator has directed life insurers to disclose the details of payments by the company to all intermediaries, except individual agents, made during a financial year. The companies should submit these details to IRDA in a tabular form along with the appointed actuaries report.

They should also indicate the total amount of business procured through the intermediaries during the period of reference, Mr R Kannan, Member (Actuaries), said in a circular sent to the life insurers on Friday.
ACCOUNTING

The regulator has sent strong signals to the insurers that they should also ensure strict conformity with the accounting standards of Institute of Chartered Accountant of India and the Companies Act. A compliance certificate to this effect should be jointly signed by the CEO, CFO and compliance officer of a company, it said. As a counter-check on the accounting practices, IRDA might “also ask external auditors of the life-insurers to certify these statements,” it added.

All the companies are also required to submit the statement of scrip-wise details of investments supporting various categories of assets such as approved securities, investments, deposits, non-mandated investments and other assets, it said in a separate circular