Today you can usually find out which company issued your policy and which distributor sold it, and little else about the person who sat across the table. IRDAI's September 23 consultation paper proposes to close that gap: the identity of the individual seller would be tagged to the policy, mis-selling incidents would sit in the public domain as part of that person's record, and commission would be clawed back where a sale is established as unsuitable. Each of those three changes is aimed at the same problem, that the person who sold a policy has historically carried no lasting consequence for selling the wrong one.

Method and data basis

Built by reading the IRDAI consultation paper of September 23, 2026 and the reporting around it through September 27, including the coverage of the mis-selling provisions and the salesperson-tagging regime IRDAI has already signalled for 2027. Comments on the paper close on October 25, 2026, and the wording in the final circular will govern over any summary, including ours. Nothing here is legal advice.

What the proposal would let you do

  • Tie a policy to a person. Tagging the seller's functional identity to the policy means a complaint, a claim dispute or a later discovery of mis-selling can be traced to the individual, not only to a company with a call centre.
  • See the record. Mis-selling incidents would be published as part of that person's performance record, visible to future employers and, in the regulator's design, to prospective customers.
  • Reverse the incentive. Clawback means commission paid on a sale established as mis-sold is recovered from the distributor. A seller who is paid on the day and never looked at again is the model the draft is dismantling.
  • Read the seller's interest before you sign. The paper brings all remuneration, direct or indirect, monetary or non-monetary, inside the statutory commission limits, which is meant to stop side benefits such as trips and gifts from driving what gets recommended.

What you can check today, before any of it starts

The proposal is not law, so the useful part now is what already exists. Your policy schedule and premium receipt name the insurer and the distribution entity. The agent or broker identification number is on the proposal form. Keep both, along with any WhatsApp or email exchange where suitability was discussed, because that record is what makes a later complaint specific. The Public Insurance Registry, which is separate from this draft but runs alongside it, is designed to show all policies issued against one identity, so the combination of a registry entry and a tagged seller is what makes accountability traceable rather than theoretical.

Implication: when seller identity starts to matter

It matters most in two situations. The first is a claim: if a claim is repudiated on a disclosure ground, knowing exactly who took the proposal and what they asked, or failed to ask, changes what you can show. The second is a switch: if you are being sold a new policy to replace an existing one, a documented record of who benefits from the move is the fastest way to test whether the move is for you. Neither situation is helped by a rule that exists only in a consultation paper, which is why the interim habit matters: record the seller, record the advice, record the date.

Action

Before you next buy, ask three questions and write the answers down: who will be recorded as the seller of this policy, what they are paid for selling it, and what they are paid for renewing it. If the answers are vague, that is itself information. If you already hold a policy sold by someone you cannot identify, ask the insurer in writing for the selling branch, agent or corporate agent code, and keep the reply. And if you intend to comment before October 25, this is one of the provisions worth arguing about: ask that seller identity attach to every retail policy from day one rather than from a later phase, and that disclosure of it be free to the policyholder rather than behind a request.

Watch item: whether the final rules keep publication of mis-selling incidents, and whether the tagging regime starts in 2027 as signalled or is folded into a later date.