Information Commissioner Directs Insurance Company PIO To Provide Details of Fire Premium Register

Vinita Deshmukh 13 February 2025

Personal Finance

In November 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that for a fire insurance claim, if the insurer is not found to be responsible for starting the fire, then identifying the precise cause of the fire is not necessary. Since then, the insurance companies are under obligation to uphold the insurer’s terms of the policy and settle claims accordingly.

However, in order to dig into the information of whether insurance companies abide by it by carrying out an in-depth research study, a series of right to information (RTI) applications requesting certified copies of the premium registers between 2006 to 2022 from the Bengaluru office of the Oriental Insurance Company Ltd were denied under the fiduciary clause in the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The central public information officer (CPIO) of the insurance company replied that since there is no larger public interest in acquiring such information it comes under Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act and that the information can be shared only if there is a fiduciary relationship between the applicant and the public authority.

The first appellate authority (FAA) too upheld the CPIO’s decision, reaffirming that the information sought falls under the exemption provided in section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act. Thus, RTI applicant H Nagaraj was compelled to file a second appeal with the central information commission.

Central information commissioner (CIC) Vinod Kumari Tiwari, in a hard-hitting order on 11 February 2025, ordered the CPIO of the Oriental Insurance Company Ltd, to provide information within three weeks. Details of information such as the types of fire insurance covered, the type of property insured, the premium charged, and the duration of the premium charged should be given, while redacting exempted information in accordance with section 10 of the RTI Act. The CIC took note of the fact that the RTI applicant was not seeking information for personal purposes but for research purposes.

RTI applicant Nagaraj had also argued in the second appeal hearing, which was done through video conferencing, that the denial of information was arbitrary and that insurance companies show bias when charging premiums, particularly in cases of fire accident coverage. He claimed that common people are charged higher premiums while certain clients receive lower rates. His mission was to do a research study in which he would compare the discrimination of the premiums by insurance companies.

In fact, such information should have been uploaded on the website of the Oriental Insurance Company voluntarily as per Section 4 of the RTI Act. However, the continued secrecy by public authorities to keep such public information under wraps, compels RTI users to go through the section 6 route of filing an RTI application and waiting for several weeks or months to finally extract the information through an order by the information commission.

(Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife. She is also the convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain Award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book "To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte" with Vinita Kamte and is the author of "The Mighty Fall".)

Comments

User

glnprasad52

4 weeks ago

This is the most exceptional order properly given by any IC for last 5 years. Let us wait as to whether the insurance company goes to HC or not and the insurance company can manage to get the IC order dismissed.

Personal Finance

Insurers Have Rs21,718 Crore Unclaimed Funds, IRDAI Does Not Maintain Details: Govt

Moneylife Digital Team 04 February 2025

Information provided by the insurance regulatory and development authority of India (IRDAI) shows that, as of 31 March 2024, insurance companies have unclaimed insurance funds worth Rs21,718 crore which declined from Rs23,699 crore as...

Personal Finance

Health Insurance Premium for Seniors Can't Be Increased by over 10% Per Year: IRDAI

Moneylife Digital Team 31 January 2025

Taking cognisance of the steep hike in premiums for health insurance for senior citizens, the insurance regulatory and development authority of India (IRDAI) says effective immediately, insurance companies cannot revise the premium...