China Commercial Health Insurance Tax Incentives Seminar

Fang Jin, the Deputy Secretary-General of China Development Research Foundation, chairs a seminar on China Commercial Health Insurance Tax Incentives on the morning of April 11, 2017.

In order to reduce the economic burden of personal commercial health insurance; further promote the development of commercial health insurance and realize effective connection with basic medical insurance, China Insurance Regulatory Committee (CIRC) issued the Interim Measures for the Administration of the Health Insurance Business involving Individual Tax Preferences in August 2015. From the March 2016 to the end of the year, 13 insurance companies started operation in 31 provinces. But actual sales volume and public reception is far below than expectations. Representatives from CIRC, experts and scholars in insurance industry have deep discussion about current status, problems and international experiences on the implementation of tax incentives.

Experts agree that the main problems in pilots of preferential tax policy include lack of policy incentives, product attractiveness, establishment of personal tax policy system, the insurance process is more cumbersome, etc. Based on these problems experts also suggest improving and optimizing policies on tax credit, tax cuts, information technology, market regulation, etc.