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On August 14, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) issued a notice warning the public not to buy insurance policies from this fake website: www.irdaionline.org. In the same notice, the insurance regulator also clarified that it does not sell insurance products. 

Notice issued by IRDAI is titled "Fake website irdaionline.org available on internet" and states: "A website using domain name- www.irdaionline.org is selling insurance to the public. This domain name is not authorized by the Authority (IRDAI). Please note that IRDAI authorized website is having domain name www.irdaonline.org and this website is hosting Centralized Agency Portal. The Authority will take action against any entity that tries to sell insurance without having proper registration. IRDAI does not sell any insurance products." 

Here’s what the homepage of the fake insurance website (www.irdaionline.org) looks like: 

 

These are the main websites of IRDAI: 
www.irdai.gov.in 
www.irdaonline.org 

Previous notices issued by Irdai 
Irdai has previously clarified that neither it nor its officials are involved in activities like sale of any kind of insurance or financial products and nor do they invest premiums and announce any bonus. So, if you have received any kind of phone call purportedly by Irdai, you should lodge a police complaint along with details of the phone call and the number. 

Here is a look at what the regulator has stated regarding fake calls and websites through its previous notices. 

To protect consumers’ interest against spurious calls and fraudulent offers, in 2016, Irdai asked all life insurers to flash a public notice prominently on homepage of their websites regarding the same. Further, TV commercials, too, were asked to run a message about the same for at least 5 seconds of space. 

IRDAI issues such notices regularly. Previously, Irdai issued a similar notice on May 3, 2019. In this notice, Yegnapriya Bharath, Chief General Manager (Non-Life) of IRDAI, said, "An entity by name "Marines Technology" (with email id.as marinestechnology.irdai@gmail.com) has been offering general insurance products / is involved in general insurance-related activities, although it has not been licensed or granted registration by the Authority to sell insurance policies of any kind. The said entity is also presenting itself to be authorized by IRDAI /working for IRDAI which is not correct. The public are advised not to make any transaction related to insurance business with M/s "Marines Technology" and to bring any such unauthorized transaction to the notice of the Authority." 

On the same day, the regulator issued another notice that stated: "An entity by name "GONE General Insurance Company’" (having website address of www.goneglobal.in displaying "Nitin Kumar Srivaastava" ’Digital Signature’ and with email id. as gonegenralinsurance@gmail.com) has been selling insurance policies and is involved in general insurance-related activities, although it has not been licensed or granted registration by the Authority to sell insurance policies of any kind. The general public are advised not to make any transaction related to insurance business with M/s GONE General Insurance, and to bring any such unauthorized transaction to the notice of the Authority."