Insurance Awareness Committee (IAC-Life) Applauds Bima Gram API; Acknowledges Its Potential in Strengthening Rural Insurance Coverage
The Insurance Awareness Committee (IAC-Life) is counting on the newly launched Bima Gram API to transform rural insurance penetration in India. Introduced by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), the Bima Gram API is an innovative digital system designed to streamline and authenticate rural insurance coverage data.
Developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR), the Department of Posts (CEPT), and the Insurance Information Bureau of India (IIBI), the solution integrates a comprehensive database with an Application Programming Interface (API). The API maps postal PIN codes to Local Government Directory (LGD) codes, creating a unified and verifiable digital ecosystem for rural identification. By simply entering a customer’s PIN code, insurers can instantly retrieve the corresponding Gram Panchayat (GP) details, enabling real-time digital validation of a policy’s rural location.
To accelerate insurance penetration across rural India, IRDAI’s Rural and Social (RuSo) mandates require insurers to cover a minimum percentage of lives, dwellings, shops, and vehicles in designated GPs. However, insurers have long struggled with accurate rural mapping, as most customer identification documents lack GP information. This often resulted in manual verification, slowing down processes and affecting the accuracy of rural insurance reporting.
The Bima Gram API resolves these challenges by offering real-time certification of rural insurance data through a trusted government-backed system. It ensures accurate digital validation of rural policies, reduces paperwork, and improves the speed, precision, and transparency of rural business reporting.
Commenting on the development, a Member of the Insurance Awareness Committee (IAC-Life) said,
“The launch of Bima Gram API marks a pivotal step in advancing rural insurance inclusion and measuring penetration across rural areas. Beyond helping insurers evaluate their rural outreach, the API will help build comprehensive baseline datasets for future policy planning and resource allocation. This initiative is set to be a landmark in India’s life insurance history by ensuring that every rural household is included in the nation’s financial safety net.”
The initiative has already completed successful pilot testing with five insurers—two life, two general, and one health insurance company—who have integrated and validated the API. Full industry-wide integration is expected soon.