Insurance Information Bureau of India (IIB)

What is the Insurance Information Bureau of India?

The Insurance Information Bureau of India (IIB) is the central data repository and analytics body for the Indian insurance sector. It was set up by IRDAI in 2009 and in November 2012 registered as a not-for-profit society under the Andhra Pradesh Societies Registration Act, 2001. Registered insurers submit policy and claims data to IIB across life, motor, health, fire and other lines, and IIB turns this into industry statistics, risk insights and services that insurers and the regulator use.

IIB is not a regulator and does not sell or service policies. It acts as IRDAI's data arm: a single reference point for sector data that would otherwise sit in dozens of separate insurer systems.

What IIB does

IIB and the Public Insurance Registry

In September 2026, IRDAI published a consultation paper on a Public Insurance Registry (PIR), described as "Digital Public Infrastructure for Insurance". The registry would hold sector-wide records of policies and claims, linked to systems such as VAHAN, e-Courts and payment systems, with consent-based access for insurers, intermediaries, lenders and government bodies.

The paper proposes to convert IIB into a not-for-profit company wholly owned by IRDAI, which would set up the PIR under separate regulations and fold its existing functions into the registry. Insurance companies could be represented on its board by rotation. The paper itself notes that today IIB collates data only "to a limited extent" and for a few lines, and that even the health portability data process needs improvement. The feedback window for the paper was extended in late September 2026; the proposal is not yet final.

The 2025 amendment Act gives a legal base for this direction: new sections 14A to 14E of the IRDA Act let IRDAI collect, manage and share information on policies and claims from regulated entities.

What IIB means for distribution

• Claim history follows the customer. Because IIB holds claims data across insurers, especially in motor and health, a customer's past claims are increasingly visible to a new insurer. Agents should not assume that a switch to another insurer hides earlier claims or a lapsed policy, and should advise customers to disclose fully.
• Portability depends on data. In health insurance portability, IIB's claim history helps the new insurer accept the port and give credit for waiting periods. Clean, complete data at the original insurer makes portability faster for the customer and the agent.
• Motor compliance. The VAHAN link lets authorities and insurers see which vehicles lack valid third party cover. This supports renewal drives by motor dealers, MISPs and POSPs, and enforcement against uninsured vehicles.
• A registry would change prospecting. If the PIR goes ahead, a customer could see all their policies across insurers in one place, and authorised distributors could, with consent, see coverage gaps. That would make advice-led selling easier and cold selling of duplicate covers harder.
• Data quality is a channel issue. Errors in proposal data, such as wrong vehicle numbers, missing nominee details or wrong dates of birth, end up in IIB's pool. Insurers are likely to push data quality checks down to the point of sale as these shared systems grow.