Union Finance Minister pats a girl after handing over a mediclaim policy in Hyderabad on Friday.

HYDERABAD: A Bill to amend the insurance laws will be introduced in the winter session of Parliament, according to Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.

"There is a need to revisit the insurance laws in the country, such as the Insurance Act, 1938, Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956 and the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) 1999", he said after launching the Vidyarthi and Parivar Mediclaim policies of the National Insurance Company (NIC) Ltd here on Friday.

"A consolidated law on insurance is planned and hopefully this will be introduced in the winter session of Parliament," he stated, adding IRDA had been asked to look into the issue of detoxification of the insurance sector.

He urged insurance companies to create awareness about their products. It was a stark reality that 48 per cent of the households and 51 per cent of farmers' families did not have access to banking. The picture in the insurance sector was worse, he said. IRDA Chairman C. S. Rao said life insurance and non-life insurance policies had seen 35 per cent and 15 per cent annual average growth respectively in 2005-06. NIC CMD V. Ramaswamy spoke.

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