Details

Related name

• Thorburn, Craig [Browse]

Series

• Other Financial Accountability Study. [More in this series]
• World Bank e-Library. [More in this series]

Summary note

Life insurance lags non-life insurance in many nascent markets. In order to develop the life insurance market, insurance companies sometimes present the introduction of tax incentives to stimulate consumers' willingness to commit to long term savings associated with life insurance. This paper examines whether insurance premiums' tax deductibility can affect life insurance penetration using regression analysis of a cross-country dataset. To complement the analysis, selected individual countries - Niger, Russia, Paraguay, and Lithuania were reviewed, looking at trends in life insurance penetration and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in United States dollar (USD) before and after a policy change. The analysis did not conclusively demonstrate that life insurance premium fiscal relief was meaningfully correlated to life insurance penetration. On the other hand, GDP per capita is strongly correlated with life insurance penetration, which is consistent with findings of other studies. The country examples where a tax policy change was introduced in life insurance premium deductibility show mixed results. In Russia and Lithuania, premium deductions appear to have had some effect on life insurance penetration. In Niger and Paraguay, it was harder to see a meaningful impact. The impact of a premium deduction on consumers' buying behavior appears to be more complex and depends on the country context such as institutional quality and overall financial market capacity. Even if the tax deduction of insurance premiums has some positive effect, it appears that it is not a panacea but just one of a number of factors motivating consumers. If a country is considering introducing a policy which allows the tax deduction of insurance premiums, it is recommended to combine it with other interventions.

Other title(s)

Developing Insurance Markets

Doi

• 10.1596/36356

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