Page 44 - Insurance Times August 2019

Y Long Term Capital Gain on sale of residential house Standard Deductions, no income tax up to Rs 5 lacs and so
property, sold before March 2021 will not face any tax on and divert that excess fund towards life insurance
if invested in eligible start-ups up to the extent of policies. They may have to impress up on the customer the
investment made. Beyond this, the LTCG is at the rate dire need to save for risk coverage, savings for the rainy day,
of 20% - a provision which was to expire on March 31 setting money apart for the retirement years and IT Rebate
2019, now extended for two years. wherever eligible - may be in the same order - instead of
Y Provisions under IT Act Section 80C allowing deductions frittering away that extra cash the person gets in his/her
up to Rs 1.5 lacs for savings instruments include hands in unproductive expenditure.
insurance policies remain the same.
The life insurance sales person has to strain his/her each
Y Standard Deduction has increased from Rs 40000 to Rs
50000. nerve to tap this excess potential for more and better new
life insurance business for the good of both the customer
Y Tax free Gratuity limit increased from Rs 10 lacs to Rs as well as the agent and of course for the welfare of the
20 lacs. entire nation.
Y Angel Tax-no income tax scrutiny on valuation of Share
Issue for Start-ups. This is the ‘Right Path’ shown by the Government of India
in its Union Finance Budget 2019-2020.
Road Ahead
The time has come last year itself not to expect any more Jai Hind.
income tax rebates under IT Section 80C from the
Government of India. Now it is for the life insurance field Note: The figures used in this article have been taken from
force to tap wherever a person gets some monetary benefit the Times of India dated July 6 2019, which I gratefully
from the other governmental measures like the increase in acknowledge. T

Term of the day: What’s the role of a third-party

administrator or TPA?

Third-party administrators (TPA) are essentially companies that function as intermediaries between the insurers and
the insured.
Health insurers generally outsource the process of accepting intimations, approving cashless claims and settlement
and disbursement of claims to TPAs, who issue identity cards to policyholders which need to be submitted to the hospital
from where the policyholder wants to make a cashless claim. TPAs have a bigger role to play at the time of filing claims—
you will first have to inform your TPA who will direct you to a hospital with which it has a tie up. Once this is done, the
hospital will get an authorization letter from the TPA following which all your bills will be sent to the TPA. The TPA
forwards your bills and other documents to the insurer for your claim to be processed.
Note that if you choose to go to a hospital which does not have a tie-up with the TPA, you won’t be able to make a
cashless claim but your expenses will get reimbursed by the insurer. However, you could still get the claim processed
by the TPA.

SBI Gen Insurance records profit decline at 75 crore

SBI General Insurance has recorded a decline in net profit at Rs 75 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2019, compared to
Rs113 crore in the same period previous year.
The drop in profit of the life insurance subsidiary of State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, was attributed to higher
tax outgo.
The insurer’s gross underwritten premium grew 26.4% to Rs 1,278 crore in the first quarter of the fiscal from Rs 1,011 crore
a year ago. It made an underwriting profit of Rs 1.47 crore in the April to June 2019 quarter, compared to Rs 6.91 crore in
the same period a year ago.

44 The Insurance Times, August 2019