(by NT Balanarayan & Nikhil Pahwa) PolicyBazaar, possibly the largest web insurance aggregators in India has exceeded the FDI limit of 26% set by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) recently: As much as 38% of Policybazaar is owned by foreign investors, and in an email to MediaNama (in response to our story last week), Policybazaar founder Yashish Dahiya called this change in policy a "killer", saying that "There are two killers though. One 26% FDI, who will invest if FVCI's cannot, we are already at 38%. Insurers are already barred. The 2nd and one you have missed is, every three years, even if you apply for renewal in time, if the IRDA cannot approve your licence in time, you will need to stop business. If these two can change, we will survive and grow." PolicyBazaar had raised $5 million last year from investors including Inventus Capital. Apart from foreign investors, they also have funding from Info Edge (Naukri). The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill 2008, which seeks to raise FDI cap in the sector from 26% to 49%, was cleared by Union Cabinet through automatic route, but is still had to be cleared by the Parliament. This was expected to happen during the winter session last year, but it was never discussed in detail. A few members of the house raised concern over passing this bill and it's not clear when it'll be brought up again. IRDA Rethinks FDI On the 10th of January 2013, however, IRDA issued a notice where it said that…
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