Insurers eye tax benefits, incentives in Union Budget

India's insurance sector outlook, expectations, and growth projections for 2025-29, including tax benefits and incentives for policy sales.

Insurers are seeking tax benefits for buyers and incentives for selling policies in their wishlist for the upcoming Union Budget as the country is projected to emerge as the G20's fastest-growing insurance market.

In 2023-24, the country's insurance penetration was at 3.7% compared to 4% in 2022-23, according to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai).

The insurance penetration for the life insurance industry marginally declined to 2.8% during 2023-24 from 3% in the preceding year. The penetration with respect to the non-life insurance industry remained the same at 1% during 2023-24 as in 2022-23.

India is expected to lead G20 with an average 7.3% premium growth over 2025-29 and become the fastest-growing insurance market among the elite grouping, a Swiss Re report released on Tuesday (January 14, 2025) said.

On expectations from the Budget, Neha Parikh, Vice President and Sector Head - Financial Sector Ratings at ICRA Ltd, said that given the weak solvency position of the PSU general insurance companies, the announcement related to budgetary allocation for their recapitalisation will be positive.

"Further, given the low penetration of the insurance segment, the government can announce measures to incentivise the penetration, especially for the lower ticket size policies," Ms. Parikh said.

Mayank Gupta, Co-founder and COO at Zopper, was of the opinion that addressing the ailing insurance penetration problem by incentivising the industry participants to bring new-to-insurance customers into their fold could be one such strategy to expedite the coverage of larger populations under insurance.