Policybazaar.com CEO says what customers want is healthy, purposeful living and financial well-being

Sarbvir Singh, President & CEO of Policybazaar.com

“The pandemic years have been an era of resilience, reflection and recalibration. What matters most to customers now is healthy and purposeful living along with financial well-being. With the current enthusiasm of customers to cover their financial risks with a sturdy safety shield, awareness and adoption of insurance have increased manifold. The industry looks forward to reforms that could further catalyse this growth and generate opportunities for product innovation to serve a broader range of customer needs. The insurance industry wishlist includes - (i) a greater push to term insurance: a separate category of term insurance for tax exemption needs to be introduced as the current 1.5 lakh limit easily gets expended under other eligible deductions under Section 80C. (ii) increase the current tax rebate in health insurance: from the health insurance perspective, the industry has rapidly evolved to correspond to higher demand for health insurance after the pandemic. It, therefore, is a necessary move in tandem with this demand and increase the tax rebate limit under Section 80D to at least Rs 1 lakh. Also, the GST rate on health insurance should be reduced from 18 per cent to 5 per cent to make it more cost-effective for the end consumer. (iii) making annuity income tax-free: Further, the income generated from annuity plans should also be exempted from tax to incentivise the adoption of pension products. (iv) tax benefits for home insurance: Apart from this, home insurance is an often-overlooked yet important product which needs a massive boost through tax benefits, and so, the premiums paid for home insurance should also be eligible for tax deductions.”