The Confederation of General Insurance Agents’ Associations of India, the apex body of non-life insurance agents has requested the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to withdraw 18% GST levied on individual health insurance policies.
Around 10.69 lakh individual agents have submitted their memorandum to the minister through their association requesting reduction of GST rate from 18% to 5% on individual health insurance policies.
In the memorandum, the association wrote, “We urge the government to remove GST altogether for personal insurance policies availed for self and dependents from any approved insurer in India for health insurance (treatment for self and dependents), personal accident (injury/death due to accident of self and dependents) and home insurance (building and contents against fire and allied perils, natural calamities, burglary and theft); or at least reduce GST to 5% for these policies from the current 18% bracket.”
The association has pointed that insurance policies sold to industrial and commercial purposes get benefits of input tax credit for the GST they pay. However, individual policies do not get such a benefit.
The association believes that the removal of GST will go a long way to increase penetration of non-life insurance policies.
