Seven in ten insurance buyers support capping distributor commissions if it makes premiums cheaper, 82 percent want the commission disclosed before they buy, and 86 percent say they were never told what their agent or distributor would earn from the sale. Those are the headline findings of a LocalCircles survey of more than 94,000 responses from insurance buyers across 322 districts, released on September 25 and reported by CNBC-TV18, days after IRDAI published its distribution consultation paper.

The numbers behind the headline

  • On caps: 71 percent support limits if premiums fall, 19 percent support them provided service quality is unaffected, 8 percent oppose (24,082 responses).
  • On disclosure: 82 percent want commission disclosed before any policy is bought, 6 percent only for life and health, 10 percent oppose (23,003 responses).
  • On what they were told: 86 percent were not informed of the commission before buying, 3 percent fully informed, 8 percent partially, 3 percent could not recall (23,690 responses).
  • On recommendations: 50 percent said agents frequently recommended a policy without explaining why it suited them, another 24 percent said sometimes.

Context: the gap between what buyers want and what the draft offers

IRDAI's paper proposes commission disclosure on policies with cover above Rs 5 crore and on specified commercial policies, not policy-level disclosure for every retail buyer. The survey's 82 percent sits on the other side of that line. LocalCircles says it will submit the findings to IRDAI as part of the consultation, so the numbers are aimed squarely at the October 25 deadline. The method matters here: this is an opt-in platform sample with self-reported answers, and one question in the sequence received about 23,000 responses rather than the full 94,000. It measures sentiment and reported experience, not claim ratios.

Implication

Consumer submissions and the regulator's direction are aligned on disclosure and caps, which means the contested ground at the deadline is industry feedback on service quality, transition time and pricing. If buyers' demand for upfront disclosure survives into the final rules, the way a policy is sold changes as much as what it costs.

Action

If you want disclosure on your own policy rather than only on cover above Rs 5 crore, say so in a comment before October 25, 2026. A specific request beats a general one: state that commission should be shown before purchase on every retail policy, with the amount in rupees, not a range.