Only those entities that are registered under the Companies Act and the Societies Registration Act and have more than three years of experience will be eligible for accreditation as institutes for training insurance agents.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) has come out with guidelines for approval and renewal of Agents Training Institutes (ATIs) under which verification and granting licences for such purpose will be done by a Standing Committee formed by it in 2010.

"Only (those) entities registered as company under the Companies Act and society and trusts under Societies Registration Act shall be eligible to apply for accreditation as Agents Training Institutes," Irda said.

Besides, to ensure that only serious professional players enter the segment, Irda has decided that only those institutes which are engaged in training for financial or insurance products for more than three years would be eligible to apply for starting an ATI.

Irda said that its Standing Committee will receive the applications for grant of ATI licences.

"The verification regarding the suitability, carrying out due diligence shall be the responsibility of the (Standing) committee and there shall not be any further examination after the committee makes its recommendations," it said.

The accreditation window for starting new ATI will be opened twice a year. "The accreditation will be given need based. The existing private ATIs will be granted a one-time permission as assessed by the committee to relocate the centres within the state."

"The existing ATIs will also be eligible for reallocation of the centres within the state based on the assessments made by the standing committee," IRDA said.

In case of more than one application for accreditation of ATIs in a single location, selection will be done on the basis of internal grading and marking system.

ATIs have also been directed to register themselves with Provident Fund Commissioners and follow statutory provisions regarding contribution of PF amount to account of the employees.

"The initial approval will be for a period of three years and consideration of further renewal for next three years would depend on the satisfactory compliance of requirements of accreditation," IRDA said.

It added that any centre that has not conducted any pre-recruitment training for one year continuously will have its licence cancelled.

"For renewal cases, the ATIs are required to apply with all documents/details three months in advance of expiry of accreditation," Irda said.

The regulator has also directed ATIs to maintain attendance record of trainees for inspection whenever necessary.

ATIs will have to train prospective agents for eight hours each, seven days, for full time batches, and 14 days of four hours each for part-time batches. Each batch will have a maximum of 40 students.

"Each institute should have at least one qualified permanent full-time faculty for each stream, such as Life and Non-Life," IRDA said.

The faculty must have 10-year experience in the managerial cadre with any insurer or be a qualified surveyor, engineer, CA and ICWAI professional or have similar such experience.

"The ATIs must impart pre-recruitment training to only those candidates who are sponsored by insurers by online allotment of training slot and training completion certification on portal," Irda said.

ATIs have also been permitted to undertake courses on insurance sponsored by insurers or being conducted by Insurance Institute of India and other such organisations.

However, ATIs have been forbidden from allowing any franchisee to conduct courses on their behalf.