Policybazaar for Business launches India D&O liability guide
Policybazaar for Business, the corporate insurance arm of PB Fintech, has published what it describes as India's first comprehensive guide to Directors and Officers (D&O) liability insurance, titled "The Price of the Chair." The launch comes as Indian regulators are accelerating enforcement actions that name individual directors rather than companies alone, a structural shift in how personal boardroom risk is being treated under Indian law.
The book argues that the personal financial, reputational and legal exposure facing directors has grown materially faster than the insurance and governance practices designed to protect them. India's D&O claim notifications have risen for four consecutive years, with a 32% year-on-year jump in 2024–25. Nearly half of all D&O claims filed over the past four years originated in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector, driven primarily by non-performing asset disputes and regulatory action against individual bank officials. The book notes, however, that exposure is spreading rapidly into pharmaceuticals, IT, fast-moving consumer goods and manufacturing, sectors that previously treated director-level liability as a remote risk.
Regulatory pressure behind the numbers
The regulatory backdrop is substantive. India's Companies Act 2013, SEBI enforcement mechanisms, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' director-disqualification campaigns have, collectively, made personal director liability mainstream rather than exceptional. The NCLT is increasingly issuing orders that attach to individuals rather than corporate entities, a trend the book's authors position as accelerating through 2026 and beyond.
Sarbvir Singh, Joint Group CEO of PB Fintech, who authored the book's executive foreword, said: "For a country producing world-class boards, it's striking how little boardroom conversation there is about the risk sitting on the other side of the table, the personal risk to the people sitting in it."
Sajja Praveen Chowdary, Head of Policybazaar for Business, framed the publication as an attempt to move the D&O conversation upstream: boards should be assessing coverage on their own terms rather than under the pressure of a regulatory notice already bearing a director's name.
Convergence of governance, liability and emerging risk
The release of a mass-market D&O guide at this moment reflects a broader convergence visible across both developed and emerging-market governance environments. Chapters cover not only India's existing regulatory apparatus but also emerging exposures including ESG and greenwashing claims, AI governance liability, cyber accountability and geopolitical risk, all areas where the question of individual director culpability is actively unsettled in most jurisdictions, not just India.
That framing carries macro significance for cross-sector capital allocators. As India accelerates its integration into global supply chains and its equity markets attract greater foreign institutional investment, the governance standards applied to Indian boardrooms face upward pressure from international counterparts. Sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors allocating into Indian mid-cap and large-cap equities increasingly require the same D&O coverage expectations they apply to portfolio companies in the US, UK and Singapore. The gap between what Indian boards currently carry and what global capital partners expect is one the broader D&O insurance market, and insurers including state-backed players such as The Oriental Insurance Company, whose chairman attended the launch, appears to be moving to close.
The guide is available via Amazon, Flipkart and Kindle at Rs 599, published by Pendown Press. The convergence of rising regulatory enforcement, deepening capital-market integration and expanding liability vectors across AI and ESG suggests demand for this category of guidance is likely to grow well beyond the BFSI sector where D&O claims currently concentrate.