Chennai: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has decided to ban agents training institutes with temporary accreditation from conducting training programmes.

Coming out with its new draft guidelines applicable to training institutes for agents, IRDA has has decided to stop issuing temporary accreditation. Training institutes possessing temporary sanction will have to stop operating from the date the licence expires or from the date of notification of the draft guidelines.

The draft guidelines also ban franchising of training institutes even if the faculty is from the parent institute. Similarly the new guidelines stipulate that the each institute should have at least one permanent faculty who is an associate / fellow of the Insurance Institute of India.

According to IRDA, fresh licence will be issued based on the needs of that particular city or town. In towns without agents training institutes, insurance companies will have to train the prospects themselves.