The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India’s (IRDAI) digital insurance marketplace Bima Sugam is quietly moving through its next phase of development, as insurers and intermediaries have now likely begun uploading and testing their products, sources told Moneycontrol.
Although the platform officially went live on September 18, 2025, it remains off-limits to consumers for now, with insurers still in the process of uploading and testing products, sources said.
Sources clarified that the term “live” refers to the platform’s backend becoming operational, allowing insurers to upload and verify their product data.
This means that while Bima Sugam’s infrastructure is up and running, consumers cannot yet buy, renew, or compare policies on it.
For now, the focus is on getting insurers to upload their full product portfolios and validate data integrity, said an industry practitioner on the condition of anonymity. Standardisation and integration protocols across companies are still being refined, the executive added.
Sources also said one of the key areas of ongoing discussion is likely the data privacy and security aspect of the marketplace, given the scale of personal and financial information that will flow through the system.
The platform will handle sensitive policyholder data across multiple insurers, and ensuring robust encryption, consent-based sharing, and interoperability has likely become a priority before the public rollout.
“This is not just about putting products online,” said an insurance broker on the condition of anonymity. “It’s about making sure the ecosystem can handle millions of transactions securely once it opens to consumers.”
The IRDAI has not announced a specific date for the public rollout, but sources said, and as Moneycontrol reported earlier, consumer access could be enabled in early 2026, once testing and product integration are complete.
Emails sent to the IRDAI remained unanswered until the time of publishing.
Phased rollout continues
According to an earlier Moneycontrol report, IRDAI is following a phased implementation plan for Bima Sugam. Several modules, including policy servicing, claims management, and real-time product comparison tools, are still being built and tested.
Once fully functional, the platform is expected to become a one-stop digital marketplace for all insurance-related services, designed to simplify policy discovery, comparison, and claims management.
Set up as a not-for-profit entity, Bima Sugam will be jointly owned by life, non-life, and health insurers. The governance structure, which earlier faced uncertainty, has now been clarified. According to the Bima Sugam Federation of India’s (BSFI) statement on September 18, the platform’s board will include representatives from the Life Insurance Council, the General Insurance Council, independent directors, and regulatory nominees.
The design aims to ensure transparency, neutrality, and balanced representation of all stakeholders.
AI-led ranking feature on the horizon
Moneycontrol has learned that in the next stage of development, the platform may introduce an AI-driven product ranking system.
This tool will assess insurance offerings based on multiple metrics beyond pricing, such as claim settlement ratios, persistency, and customer satisfaction, to help consumers make informed, data-backed choices once the portal is live for public use.
It will also integrate with Aadhaar, DigiLocker, and Account Aggregator frameworks to streamline verification, KYC, and documentation.
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