Full Capacity: IRDAI’s reform push needs a finer touch

October 3 2026 by

Welcome to Full Capacity, a weekly briefing on all the most important developments of the past week with a personal take on the news from our editor-in-chief, Mithun Varkey, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.    

New entrant. Simon Global’s Singapore-based reinsurance broking arm, SG Re, has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. SG Re will provide reinsurance broking services in Singapore, focusing mainly on treaty reinsurance across Asia, especially Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. 

Out of court. Japanese insurance group Tokio Marine has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by former Credit Suisse entities in connection with the collapse of Australian trade financier Greensill Capital. This follows Australian insurer IAG’s disclosure last week that its subsidiary, Insurance Australia (IAL), had also agreed to settle the proceedings. 

M&A spotlight. Australian insurer Suncorp has denied being in takeover talks with Tokio Marine, telling the Australian stock exchange on Thursday that it “is not in discussions regarding a takeover and that it has not received a takeover offer.” 

JKL Partners are eyeing a mid-October 2026 open sale for Korean carrier Lotte Non-Life Insurance after previous exclusive talks collapsed.  

Marsh has completed its acquisition of insurance intermediary businesses of Japanese energy giant Eneos. The unit will operate as EMIS Insurance Services under Marsh Japan, with Hiroyuki Hata appointed as president and representative director. 

Growing interest. Japanese trading house Itochu, continuing its multi-year push into non-life insurance across Japan, Asia and the US, has increased its stake in US insurtech Moter Technologies. The conglomerate’s insurance investments include launching Cayman Islands captive reinsurer Guna Re this year to do third-party reinsurance, acquiring a 20% stake in Thailand’s Thaivivat last year, and investing in US health insurance platform Neo Insurance Solutions. 

A blunt approach

India’s insurance regulator last week unveiled a consultation paper that would overhaul how insurance intermediaries are compensated. Proposals include capping commissions, tightening expense-of-management (EoM) rules and reshaping remuneration across channels. 

The intent is to restrict mis-selling, especially in life and health, and make policies cheaper. However, as drafted, the proposals will also hit non-life insurers and brokers. 

The Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI) has already gone on record with deep concerns.  

The industry body argues the proposals does not distinguish between insurance sold to a customer and insurance chosen by a customer through an adviser they have appointed. 

That distinction matters. 

While insurers now enjoy the flexibility to structure commissions within overall expense limits, Sidharrth Shankar, a partner at Indian law firm JSA, noted, “The consultation paper charts a markedly different course – proposing hard caps at the product level. This would represent a fundamental reset, requiring distribution arrangements across the sector to be comprehensively reworked.” 

The broker body also points out that an expense limit cut of more than 30% for insurers within five years cannot be met by efficiency alone. Something has to give,+ and that something will be people.  

Companies will trim sales, servicing and claims staff across private and public sectors alike. 

The paper’s suggestions could risk making the capacity issues that already plague the industry worse. 

“By shifting the calculation base from gross written premium to gross direct premium income, the expense headroom available to insurers would narrow considerably,” said Shivangi Sharma Talwar, also a partner at JSA.  

Meanwhile, mandatory cost audits for insurers and large distributors add an additional layer of regulatory oversight and cost. 

The government’s own “Insurance for All by 2047” agenda requires more feet on the ground and more advisers in small towns. 

And as an IBAI spokesperson noted, insurance is a people business. But the proposals will “reduce the people who reach customers in small towns and the people who service them inside insurers, and it contains no mechanism to ensure that the savings reach policyholders as lower premiums”. 

A uniform framework of 30-plus commission caps, a one-third cut in the expense ceiling, and a substantial new compliance load – reverses a three-year-old framework that had sought to ease these burdens on intermediaries. 

Capping commissions and squeezing broker remuneration doesn’t eliminate mis-selling, but pushes it underground as the past experience in India has shown. 

The IBAI’s conclusion is blunt and, frankly, worth noting: “Weakening the one participant whose duty is to the customer cannot serve the customer.” 

People moves

It’s a game of musical chairs atop Singapore’s insurance sector – Income Insurance named Manulife CEO Khoo Kah Siang as its new CEO, while Great Eastern hired Allianz Singapore’s Hicham Raissi to head its general insurance business, prompting Allianz to promote COO Bi Ying Ong as Raissi’s successor. 

Marsh has promoted Thailand CEO Derek Heng to Asean CEO and Peta Latimer to CEO of Marsh Singapore. 

Aon has bolstered its Japan global solutions with the appointment of Naoki Kido as global head and Yuki Tanemura as global chief commercial officer and head of North America.

Meanwhile, AIG in Japan named Keiichi Ishida as country head of commercial property. 

Coface has appointed Zach Spencer as head of risk underwriting for Asia Pacific. 

Do check out our weekly people move round-up to stay up to speed on the most important appointments in the region. 

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