Monika Halan, author and financial educator, wants the timeline in IRDAI's distribution draft cut from years to months. Speaking to ANI in an interview published on September 26, she said the glide path of two years and five years is too long because "the industry will not do anything unless there is a hard deadline which is closed," and that six months would be the right deadline rather than five years. She also said resistance is already under way: "it is a very well-funded entrenched industry which is already lobbying with the Ministry of Finance with other power centers in Delhi to roll this back."
Context: what she is reacting to
The draft sets expense of management for life insurers at 15 percent of gross direct premium income within two years and 12.5 percent within five, and for general insurers down from 30 percent to 20 percent over five years. Halan welcomed the shift in the regulator's stance under Chairman Ajay Seth, saying that for 27 years the policyholder has been last in the mind of the insurance regulator, and framed the stakes plainly: profits built on the tears of policyholders are bad for the country. Her critique is not of the caps, it is of the time allowed to reach them.
Implication
The consultation's real contest is the calendar. The cap levels have already been drafted and analysed in public; the glide path is where the negotiation will happen, because every year of transition is a year of the current incentive structure. Halan's claim about lobbying is her characterisation of industry behaviour, not a documented fact, so treat it as a watch-item: the test is whether the final rules keep the proposed dates or quietly lengthen them.
Action
Comments close on October 25, 2026. If you comment, comment on deadlines as well as levels. Ask what protects policyholders during the transition: suitability checks, disclosure and commission clawback enforceable from the day the rules are notified, rather than at the end of a five-year glide path. Whether the timeline moves is the single most consequential thing still undecided in this paper.