In India, life insurance companies may soon have to publish their annual reports in newspapers, in a bid to make them more clearer.

The firms have been urged to furnish details of investments made in stock markets between September and November, a member of the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority Of India (IRDA) announced.

R Kannan, a member of the IRDA said: "We'll soon stipulate that insurers publish their annual reports. Moreover, insurers will start doing that on their own because of peer pressure and also when they go for credit rating."

Only a few life insurance companies post their yearly reports on their websites, other than this, very little is known about the investments made in stock markets by insurance firms.

Kannan furthered:"We have asked insurance companies to provide us with information on investments made between September and November."

Charted accountant P.S. Prabhaker said: "With the regulator soon expected to come out with regulations for mergers and acquisitions, the time is ripe for bringing more transparency."

R. Ramakrishnan shared the opinion that life insurers should be regulated:"Life insurers deal with public money and a lot of public interest is involved. Life insurers have to advertise their annual report in newspapers as practised by the banking sector."

Ramakrishnan continued: "Policyholders need not know about profit or loss or the assets and liabilities of an insurance company."