From now on, the National Pension System (NPS) pensioners don’t have to fill any separate proposal form for taking the Immediate Annuity products from the proceeds of the scheme. As of now, NPS retirees were required to submit an exit form to NPS and a proposal form to insurers at the time of retirement.
Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) on Tuesday announced the move in a circular on September 13. “In this direction, to bring ease of living for senior citizens, Irdai has relaxed the requirement of submitting separate proposal form for taking the immediate annuity products from proceeds of National Pension System (NPS),” Irdai said in a circular, reported news agency PTI. The edit form of NPS will be treated as a proposal form for purchasing annuity, thereby reducing the time and effort of senior citizens and insurers.
In order to promote the adoption of technology, insurers have been advised to adopt Aadhar-based authentication for verification of life certificate, such as Jeevan Pramaan, a Government of India (GoI) initiative on biometric-enabled digital service.
What does it mean for retirees?
Pensioners will no longer need to fill a separate proposal form to decide on the annuity after exiting the pension corpus. The measure is aimed at providing ease of doing business in the insurance industry and protecting of interests of policyholders, the insurance regulator said, according to the PTI.
They are responsible for providing a monthly annuity pension to the subscribers. While the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority has pension fund managers under the NPS who are in charge of investing the pension corpus of the subscribers in a judicious and prudent manner.