The Public Insurance Registry (PIR)
Governance / Economy · Thursday, 3 September 2026
IRDAI has issued a consultation paper proposing the establishment of a Public Insurance Registry (PIR) as a Digital Public Infrastructure to address information gaps across the insurance sector. The PIR would operate as a federated, interoperable data layer under the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025.
Quick highlights
- IRDAI proposes a Public Insurance Registry (PIR) as a population-scale, interoperable Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
- PIR follows a federated model — original institutions retain data ownership; PIR facilitates controlled access via lightweight references and anonymized aggregates.
- Proposed implementing body: Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) transformed into a wholly owned, not-for-profit IRDAI subsidiary.
- Uses verified identity anchors with demographic probabilistic matching and confidence scores to resolve duplicate profiles.
- Consent-driven architecture: data access requires specific, informed, revocable, and auditable customer authorization.
- Designed to integrate with vehicle, health, weather, disaster, and court databases for automated verification.
Context
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has issued a consultation paper proposing the establishment of a Public Insurance Registry (PIR). Conceived as a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), it aims to address critical information gaps across the insurance sector under the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025.
Key Facts
The PIR is a population-scale, interoperable, non-exclusionary DPI designed as a common information exchange layer. Regulator and anchor: IRDAI. Implementing body: existing Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) to be transformed into a wholly owned, not-for-profit subsidiary of IRDAI. Ecosystem participants include insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, policyholders, financial institutions, government departments, and research bodies. The PIR follows a federated model (Source-System Primacy) where original institutions retain data ownership. It uses interoperable open standards with unified data formats and common digital protocols. Identity anchoring uses verified identity anchors with probabilistic demographic matching and confidence scores.
Significance
The PIR reduces turnaround times for claim settlements and underwriting by enabling real-time, verified access to customer history and documents. It enhances industry-wide fraud detection, reduces policy duplication, and pinpoints fraudulent claims across multiple insurers. It provides anonymized, aggregate insights on insurance loss trends, underserved geographies, and demographics to help design more inclusive products. External integration with vehicle, health, weather, disaster, and court databases enables automated verification without data duplication.
Challenges / Way Forward
Ensuring robust data privacy and cybersecurity in a federated architecture handling sensitive financial and health data is critical. Building interoperability across hundreds of insurers with varying legacy IT systems will be a major implementation challenge. Gaining policyholder trust through transparent consent mechanisms and preventing mission creep of data usage are essential. Harmonizing the PIR framework with existing DPIs like Aadhaar, DigiLocker, and Account Aggregator will require careful architectural planning.
Exam Angle
Prelims: IRDAI, Insurance Information Bureau (IIB), DPI concept, Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha Act 2025. Mains (GS II – Governance / GS III – Economy): Evaluate the proposed Public Insurance Registry as a Digital Public Infrastructure and its potential to transform India's insurance ecosystem. Compare with other Indian DPIs (UPI, Aadhaar, ONDC).
Remember this
- IRDAI proposes PIR under the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025.
- PIR is a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) — federated, not a central data silo.
- Implementing body: Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) to become a not-for-profit IRDAI subsidiary.
- Uses Source-System Primacy: original institutions retain data ownership.
- Consent-driven architecture: data access must be specific, informed, revocable, and auditable.
- Integrates with vehicle, health, weather, disaster, and court databases.
- Aims to reduce claim settlement times, detect fraud, and reduce policy duplication.
- Participants: insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, policyholders, financial institutions, government departments.
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