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EU and local legislation Location of risk is one of the key criteria an insurer must identify and consider before thinking about insurance premium taxes. It’s important to understand the location of risk rules and apply them correctly to be able to settle insurance premium taxes compliantly and to the correct tax authority. Whilst location […]

Slowly but surely, so-called insurtech companies are increasing their share of the insurance market. After a record year in 2018 that saw USD 4.15 billion invested into insurtech companies, 2019 is likely to surpass this achievement with USD 1.42 billion already invested during the first quarter. While official announcements of partnerships with long lasting classic […]

Global insurance programmes will cover risks in multiple jurisdictions throughout the world and allocating the premium between all these jurisdictions can be a major challenge for insurers.  It gets even more complicated when the risks of that particular programme are unknown at the time of contract inception. Bon voyage This could be, for example, where […]

Tax legislation is sometimes structured, or worded, ambiguously.  This leaves scope for a number of different interpretations for the treatment of tax on insurance policies, some leading to a lower tax liability than others. This can often be seen when different insurance premium tax (IPT) rates apply to specific sub-classes of the same business or […]

Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) – the UK Government department responsible for the collection of taxes – is undertaking a call for evidence to understand how the administration and collection of Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) can be modernised and how it can address emerging practices that may lead to unfair tax outcomes. The aim […]

An insurer may need to reclaim insurance premium tax (IPT) from a tax authority for many reasons. These include a policy cancellation or mid-term adjustment, an administrative error or issuing a no claims bonus. In each case, it’s important to be aware of the issues involved ahead of any reclaim to ensure taxes are recovered […]

Freedom of services insurers are faced with a number of different obligations when entering new territories and writing insurance business within the European Union.  One that may initially be overlooked relates to which policy details are required to be recorded and then reported to the tax authorities.   It is essential that all insurance premium […]

Many insurance premium taxes (IPT) and levies exist throughout Europe and, due to the lack of tax harmonisation, there are no general rules governing how the tax is calculated.  There are a number of different ways to calculate these taxes that are used across the EU including percentage rate, fixed amounts, sliding scales and other […]

Premium taxes shouldn’t be overlooked as pressure mounts for insurers to protect profit margins. The UK insurance market in recent years has achieved on average a combined ratio of 95%, meaning that for every £100 of premium income written, the insurer makes an underwriting profit of £5. If you then consider that the standard rate […]

Some insurance premium tax regimes operate a kind of prepayment mechanism, whereby insurers are required to pay an amount to the tax authorities in anticipation of future tax liabilities.  This credit is then drawn down on or adjusted as and when actual tax liabilities crystallise.  Prepayment should not, therefore, represent an additional cost to insurance […]

The Danish government has introduced new law creating a state-owned insurance scheme for compensation for losses arising from a terrorist attack using chemical, biological, nuclear and radioactive (CBNR) weapons. The scheme comes into effect on 1 July 2019. There had been concerns that CBNR terror coverage available in the market was limited and, as it […]

Brexit has been the main topic on the news and in our conversations for almost three years, and if we thought we would get some answers by the end of March 2019, then we were definitely wrong!  There are now even more questions to answer and possible outcomes to plan for, but businesses cannot sit […]

Today’s tax and compliance managers need to follow the Scouts’ motto:  Be Prepared. Properly managing taxation and reporting burdens takes a team of professionals – from finance, tax and accounting to IT – colleagues willing to work together to establish the policies and controls that make it possible to meet the demands of tax compliance.  […]