Banks are prohibited from selling investment-linked insurance to borrowers.

That is the notable content in Circular 67/2023/TT-BTC guiding the Law on Insurance Business recently issued by the Ministry of Finance .

This Circular has many new additions, especially the improvement of regulations on insurance agents, which is expected to support the healthy and right-oriented development of the bancassurance channel.

Specifically, Circular 67 stipulates that banks are not allowed to advise, introduce, offer, or arrange the conclusion of investment-linked insurance contracts for customers within 60 days before and after the date of disbursement of the entire loan.

This regulation was issued by the Ministry of Finance after many people complained that they were forced to buy life insurance when borrowing money from banks.

In addition to regulations on cross-selling insurance through banking channels, the Ministry of Finance also added many constraints to insurance consulting agents in general.

For example, during the consultation process, the insurance agent or the agency's staff must provide complete and accurate information about the product, using documents provided by the insurance company.

Particularly for complex insurance products such as investment-linked insurance products, the Ministry of Finance requires recording of the consultation process for this product.

Circular 67 also stipulates that, during the process of consulting on insurance products, insurance agents or employees in the agency organization directly performing insurance agency activities must provide complete and accurate information about insurance products to the insurance buyer, using documents provided by the insurance company or branch of a foreign non-life insurance company.

In addition, this circular adds requirements for documents in insurance contracts. For long-term life insurance products with a cash value, the insurance company is responsible for providing a paper summary document to the insurance buyer and must have the insurance buyer's confirmation to help the insurance buyer more easily access information, better understand the product, rights and obligations when participating in a life insurance contract before deciding to enter into the contract.

The 21-day consideration period for insurance participation is determined from the time the policyholder confirms receipt of the above documents.

In addition, Circular 67 also adds a number of regulations to further strengthen the responsibility of enterprises in monitoring and controlling the quality of bancasurance activities.

Accordingly, insurance companies must periodically monitor and inspect to ensure the quality of their employees' product introduction and consultation. Insurance companies must also promptly coordinate with agency organizations to inspect and handle complaints from insurance buyers and handle violations, if any.

Customer shocked to discover forged Manulife insurance contract A Manulife insurance customer discovered that his personal information was arbitrarily taken and used for another insurance contract, while he only had one insurance contract many years ago.

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