Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in a public notice said, “Our attention is drawn to some messages circulated in social media with our emblem and logo asking policyholders to link their Aadhaar number by sending SMS to designated number”.  “Also no facility to link Aadhaar number to policies is available through SMS in LIC,” it added. In its notice, the country’s largest insurance company further added that as and when LIC will enable linking of Aadhaar number with policies through SMS, its website will be duly updated with this option.
In India, there are 24 life insurance companies and 33 general insurers (including standalone health insurance firms) operating in the country. Earlier this month, Regulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) said linkage of Aadhaar number with insurance policies is mandatory and asked insurers to comply with the statutory norms. “The Authority clarifies that, linkage of Aadhaar number to insurance policies is mandatory under the Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017,” the IRDA said.
In June, the government had notified the Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017 and had made Aaadhar and PAN/Form 60 a must for availing financial services including insurance and also for linking the existing policies with the same.