Insurance companies suggested changes in life insurance law to Ministry of Finance

The Insurance Development Fund has presented, in association with all 12 insurance companies that offer life insurance services in Serbia, a series of changes and supplements to legal regulations with the aim of stimulating development of insurance sector.

Suggested changes are classified into three groups - introduction of tax stimuli when life insurance contract is signed, issuing of long-term securities, and improvement of conditions for representation in insurance business. These changes concern the Law on tax on citizens' incomes, Law on tax on companies' profit, Law on social insurance allowances, Law on insurance and Law on public debt.

The State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Slobodan Ilić, said that the insurance industry in Serbia must be at significantly higher level of development, and he pointed out that only 2.5% of our citizens had life insurance policy, while the premium per capital amounted to 10 EUR.

- The Ministry of Finance will take these suggestions in consideration as soon as possible and, if needed, it would ask the National Bank and the representative of IMF for opinion - Ilić said at today's (July 21, 2009) meeting in the Ministry of Finance.

According to the words of the Director General of "Delta Generali" insurance company, Nebojša Divljan, the issuing of long-term securities should be presented in foreign currency, that is, EUR, with the maturity period of over 10 years and interest rate of up to 6.5%, the same as in Croatia.

International actuarial company "Milliman" has presented the study on connection between life insurance and economic growth of a country, as well as on significance of collecting long-term savings through life insurance.

- The more developed insurance market, the larger economic growth in the country, but that process inevitably requires support from the Government - Francesco Filacchioni, the President of company "Milliman", pointed out.