Whole Life Insurance, Endowment Insurance, Child Insurance, Education Insurance and Annuity Products are amongst the products that are GST free.
Kuala Lumpur, Friday, 6 March 2015: Life insurance are exempt from the Goods and Services Tax (GST). This means that policyholders who have purchased or intend to purchase life insurance products such as Whole Life Insurance, Endowment Insurance, Child Insurance, Term Insurance (including mortgage insurance), Education Insurance and Annuity products will not have to pay the 6% GST on their life insurance premiums.
We wish to highlight that while premiums for investment-linked policies will not attract GST, the fees and charges imposed on these policies such as policy fee will be subject to GST. Similarly non-life riders such as critical illness, medical and health, and personal accident, the premiums will be subject to GST. As a guide, non-life riders are defined as riders which do not cover natural death.
Although GST is applicable beginning 1 April 2015, policyholders who have purchased non-life riders before 1 April 2015 will be required to pay GST on the applicable portion of insurance premium/fee/charges for insurance coverage from 1 April 2015 onwards.
All LIAM member insurance companies have already notified their policyholders through the following communication channels:
i. Notification that GST is applicable on non-life insurance and fees on Company’s website;
ii. Inform policyholders either through annual premium notices/separate letter that GST is payable;
iii. Notification to policyholders to increase direct debit authorization limit to cater for GST.
We would also like to advise all policyholders to contact their respective insurance companies to find out the amount of GST that they will have to pay for their medical and health, critical illness and personal accident policies that are due on 1 April 2015 onwards.
For policies paying through direct debit facilities, insurance companies will work with banks to increase the authorisation limit accordingly to include GST. However, policyholders are also advised to contact their respective insurance companies directly to clarify if fresh authorisation forms need to be submitted to increase authorisation limit to cater for GST payable to ensure premium are successfully deducted and to keep their insurance policy status in-force.
