TheAuthority has been receiving various complaints/ suggestions in respect of CropInsurance claims. It may be recalled that a workshop on Crop Insurance wasconducted by IRDAI on 15^th November 2018 wherein representatives ofvarious stakeholders, apart from representatives of Insurers participated.Fruitful discussions on various relevant issues took place.

Foreffective implementation of Crop Insurance Schemes, insurers are advised to beguided by the following:

1.   Proper representation in stakeholder meetingsrelating to Crop Insurance: - Insurance companies mustensure proper representation in crop Insurance meetings that may be called forby relevant stakeholders. Senior level officials having the required decision makingpower should be deputed for such meetings.

2.    DesignateAuthorized Persons for each allocated cluster-Companies should designate an authorized person for each cluster. Thisdesignated person should be senior level permanent employee of the companyhaving sufficient decision making powers for smooth implementation.

3.    Deploymentof adequate manpower by Insurance Company for each cluster- InsuranceCompanies should ensure that sufficient manpower should be deployed for eachcluster for different activities such as:

a.   Liasioning with State Governments

b.   Creating awareness and generating publicity forPMFBY at grass-root level including bank branches

c.   Facilitating the bank branches/ intermediaries/agents to upload the details of insured farmers and beneficiaries with allrequisite details on National Crop Insurance Portal well in time,

d.   Co-observing Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs)and allied activities.

4.    Individualloss assessment: Insurance Company should put in place arobust system to register all requests of individual loss assessment. Where a requestfor individual loss assessment is rejected, a written rejection lettermentioning the reason should be sent to insured. For all other cases, lossassessment survey should be done as per prescribed guidelines.

5.    AwarenessProgramme: - Widespread awareness programmes should beconducted for educating farmer on scheme guidelines, claim settlement processand grievance redressal process.

6.    Responsein Vernacular Language: -Insurers should ensure thatat call centers/ Toll-Free numbers responses should be available in State’sOfficial Language other than Hindi and English. Websites of insurers shoulddisclose crop insurance related details in the vernacular language for the benefitof farmers.

Please confirm having noted the above.

Yegnapriya Bharath

CGM (Non-Life)