On 17 June 2026 IRDAI constituted a seven‑member Working Group on Artificial Intelligence (WG‑AI) for the insurance sector.
Composition and Mandate
- Membership: Seven members; chaired by Sandeep K. Shukla (IIIT Hyderabad); member‑convener Deepak Gaikwad (IRDAI CISO); includes officials/experts from CERT‑In, Reserve Bank Information Technology (ReBIT), SBI Life, Star Health and ICICI Lombard.
- Primary mandate: prepare governance frameworks, best practices, safeguards and an AI audit framework for insurance use cases.
- Delivery timeline: submit recommendations within three months to the Member (F&I) of IRDAI.
Scope of Examination
- Use cases: claims processing, fraud detection and prevention, underwriting, pricing and customer interactions.
- Risk and safeguards: ethical use, transparency, explainability, data protection and AI‑related cyber risks.
- Regulatory review: study global supervisory approaches and adaptations for India’s insurance ecosystem.
Regulatory Context
- Preceding guidance: follows IRDAI’s April 2026 revised information and cybersecurity guidelines addressing evolving AI‑driven cyber threats.
- Cross‑regulatory inputs: inclusion of CERT‑In and ReBIT indicates coordination with national cyber and financial IT authorities.
Technical & Audit Focus
- AI audit elements: model governance, dataset provenance, performance metrics, bias testing, logging and traceability for explainability.
- Model classification: differentiates predictive models (underwriting/pricing) from generative and decision‑support systems (customer service, claim adjudication).
IASPOINT Booster Facts
- IRDAI: statutory regulator under the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999.
- Relevant frameworks: EU AI Act (risk‑based) and IAIS deliberations serve as international comparators for insurance AI governance.
- Data law linkage: sectoral data obligations operate alongside the IT Act 2000 and pending personal data legislation.