SEBI Asks IRDAI to Add Insurance Data to the Consolidated Account Statement for a Single View of Investor Holdings

India's market regulator wants investors to be able to see their insurance policies alongside their shares, mutual funds and pensions in one statement. Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, said on Thursday, October 15, that SEBI has written to the chairman of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India asking that insurance-related information be included in the consolidated account statement, usually shortened to CAS. According to Business Standard, which reported his remarks, he spoke on the sidelines of the annual conference of Sahamati, the industry alliance for account aggregators. The aim is to give investors a fuller picture of their financial holdings. The report does not say when the letter was sent, whether IRDAI has replied, or when any change might take effect.

To see why this matters, it helps to know what the statement is today. A CAS is a combined statement of a person's transactions and holdings across all mutual funds and across securities held in demat form, linked to one Permanent Account Number. According to a guide published by HDFC Mutual Fund, depositories, meaning NSDL and CDSL, generate and send the statement. An investor who has had a transaction in a month receives a statement for that month, and an investor with no transactions receives a half-yearly statement showing holdings. SEBI circulars cited by a market-information site say that email delivery became the default from August 1, 2024, with physical copies available on request, and that from May 14, 2025 fund houses and registrars send their data to the depositories within five days of month-end. The same site reports that SEBI has started discussions with the Reserve Bank of India and IRDAI about widening what the statement covers. Those details come from secondary sources, and readers should check SEBI's circulars for the current rules.

According to the Business Standard report, the statement currently covers securities holdings, mutual funds, stocks held across brokers and the National Pension System. The new request would add insurance. Pandey also said SEBI is working on the technical details of including bank deposit information. That follows an announcement by the Reserve Bank of India that SEBI-regulated depositories can access bank deposit information on a continuous basis. In his remarks, Pandey said the account aggregator framework, which allows people to share their financial data between institutions with their consent, could help link information across products and improve the statement.

Why would a unified view help? Many Indians hold several kinds of financial product at once. A salaried worker may have a bank deposit, a few mutual fund schemes, some shares, a pension account and a life insurance policy, perhaps more than one. Each arrives in its own statement, from a different institution, on a different schedule. People often forget policies, lose track of premium due dates, or do not know the total they have saved. A single statement does not change the products, but it makes the picture easier to see. The report notes that a consolidated view would support financial planning and investment advice based on a person's overall portfolio, for example by showing whether someone who holds a lot of equity also has enough life cover.

Insurance is a different kind of product from shares and funds, which is why the request is notable. A life policy is partly protection and partly savings, and its value is not simply a market price. A term plan has no cash value at all. Showing insurance in a statement designed for investments would require choices about what to display: the sum assured, the premium status, the surrender value or the fund value of a unit-linked plan. The report does not say what SEBI has proposed. India already has a system of electronic insurance accounts held with authorised repositories, which lets policyholders keep policies in one place, and that is a possible starting point for integration, although this is general background and the report does not link the two.

Privacy and consent will be central. Insurance and bank data are sensitive, and the account aggregator framework is built on the idea that the customer approves each sharing of data. A statement that includes insurance would need to respect the same principle and protect the data in transit. The Business Standard report does not discuss these safeguards, so it is not clear how SEBI and IRDAI plan to handle them.

Pandey made several other points at the same briefing. He said SEBI is still in talks with the National Payments Corporation of India, which recently deferred a fee on merchant payments known as the merchant discount rate, and that discussions are ongoing. He said SEBI has sent nearly 44 crore investor-awareness messages over the past nine days, using digital platforms and several languages. He also said SEBI is reviewing proposals to strengthen securities lending and borrowing, which supports short selling, that a working group has met, and that a consultation paper will follow once the proposals are finalised, although he gave no timeline.

What should investors do now? Nothing changes immediately, because the request has not become a rule. In the meantime, there are practical steps. Make sure your mutual fund and demat accounts are linked to the same PAN and the same email address, so that your existing statement is complete. Keep a list of all insurance policies, with the insurer, policy number, premium due date and nominee, and tell your family where it is. Check that nominees are updated across investments and insurance. If you want to see your holdings in one place today, the account aggregator apps that banks and fintech companies offer can already combine some data with your consent.

The next developments to watch are IRDAI's reply, any consultation paper that sets out what insurance data would appear, and the timeline for adding bank deposits. Because the proposal involves two regulators and several industries, it may take time. The direction is clear, however: regulators want investors to see more of their finances in one place.