There are quite a few types of tax reliefs that you can claim to reduce your chargeable income and thus pay less in taxes, and some of the biggest reliefs you can get are from any insurance policies that you may own.

If this is your first time filing your taxes, claiming for your insurance premiums is not as straight forward as putting the total premium you pay for your policy each year. The premium is broken down into a few charges, such as Life, Medical, and Others. It is important that you make the proper claims for income tax relief when filing your tax returns in Malaysia, because you may end up overstating the amount in your tax filing and risk being penalised for this error.

In this article, we will walk you through claiming tax reliefs for your insurance payments. More precisely, we will help you identify what to look out for in your annual insurance statements, as well as how exactly to claim for tax reliefs for your insurance in your income tax returns form (ITRF).

What are the income tax reliefs offered for insurance?

When it comes to insurance policies, these are the claimable tax reliefs offered for Malaysia personal income tax:

Malaysia Income Tax Relief	Claim Allowed
Life insurance and EPF	– Up to RM3,000 for life insurance and additional voluntary EPF contributions – Up to RM4,000 for EPF contributions and other permitted schemes (inclusive of voluntary EPF contributions)
Education and medical insurance	Up to RM3,000 for self, spouse, or child
Private retirement scheme (PRS) and deferred annuity	Up to RM3,000

For context, the government had made a revision to the tax relief permitted for life insurance and EPF contributions under Budget 2023, which is applicable for YA 2023 and the subsequent years. Specifically, it has been amended so that pensionable civil servants (who do not make voluntary EPF contributions) and private sector employees (who make statutory/voluntary EPF contributions) are now both subjected to the same RM3,000/RM4,000 breakdown for life insurance premiums and EPF contributions.

Previously, pensionable civil servants were allowed to claim the full RM7,000 relief for life insurance premiums/takaful contributions if they do not make any voluntary EPF contributions. Now – just like private sector employees – they can only claim up to RM3,000 for life insurance, and must contribute to the EPF if they wish to tap into the remaining RM4,000 tax relief allocated. This new structure was introduced in a bid to encourage all Malaysians to save more for their retirement.

What is an annual insurance statement?

Your annual insurance statement, also sometimes called an annual premium statement, is a document that lists out your insurance plans with that particular insurer, the amount of premium paid for that year, and the types of coverage you are entitled to. These details will be vital in helping you claim your insurance tax reliefs.

Here is how a typical annual insurance statement would look like:

 

How to read your annual insurance statement for tax relief claims

For the purposes of income tax relief claims, you will need to depend on your annual insurance statement to know how much you are entitled to claim for. Most insurers already make this quite easy for you, as the statement will break down the amount you can claim under Life, Medical, Critical Illness (also sometimes referred to as “Medical/Life”), and others.

Your different types of insurance or coverage will need to be properly sorted out and claimed accordingly under the different types of income tax relief available for insurance. Here’s a table to help you match your insurance types to the right category:

Claim under	Types of Insurance/Coverage
Life insurance premium	Life   100% of premium claimable   Disability 100% of premium claimable   Life/Education 100% of premium claimable (*Alternatively, claim under “Education and medical insurance” if your nominee is a child)
Education and medical insurance	Education   100% of premium claimable   Medical 100% of premium claimable   Critical Illness 60% of premium claimable (*Alternatively, claim 100% under “Life insurance premium” if your critical illness insurance is attached to your life insurance)
Private retirement scheme (PRS) and deferred annuity	Annuity/Deferred Annuity   100% of premium claimable

Do note that premiums paid for accidental and waiver riders are not eligible for tax reliefs.

Filling in your income tax

In your online tax filing form (under the “Relief” section), here’s where you should enter the corresponding amounts in your premium statements – we’ve highlighted the relevant items in red:

Examples

To illustrate how you should calculate your insurance tax reliefs, here’s a scenario: let’s say an individual has three insurance plans with AIA that includes a few types of coverage. Here are his annual insurance statements:

In the example above, the statement expressly states the amount of premium paid for each coverage type. From here, it’s as simple as adding up the amount for each coverage type. Note that for Critical Illness, the individual can either claim 60% of that amount under Education & Medical Insurance, or 100% of it under Life Insurance. Play around with the figures: the aim here is to maximise claims from both Life Insurance and Education & Medical Insurance since they are two separate allocations.

Based on the three statements provided above, here’s how the calculation for tax relief claims will look like:

	Life insurance premium	Education and medical insurance	PRS and deferred annuity
Statement 1	1,321.47	–	–
Statement 2	981.99	2,018.01	–
Statement 3	1,565.10	140.94 (60% x 234.90)	–
Total	3,868.56	2,158.95	–

In other words, the individual is actually entitled to claim RM3,868.56 under Life insurance and RM2,158.95 under Education & Medical insurance. However, the Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) has specified that an individual can only claim a maximum of RM3,000 for Life insurance (for non-public servant) as well as RM4,000 for Education & Medical insurance, respectively.

Since the RM3,000 Life insurance allocation has been maxed out, it makes more sense to claim the remaining Critical Illness insurance under Education & Medical insurance, even if the individual can only claim 60% of the amount.

As such, the final insurance tax reliefs will ultimately look like this:

As mentioned earlier, some insurers provide annual insurance statements that have been prepared especially for income tax relief claims, where the premiums are already itemised to easily show how much you can claim for each relief. If that is the case, then all you need to do is to input the figures provided in your statement into your income tax return form – no need for calculations!

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By protecting yourself and your loved ones with your insurance plans, you also reduce your total taxable income (and hence paying less income tax overall). This is actually one of the many ways the Malaysian government is encouraging Malaysians to be insured.

Hopefully, this will help you better understand how to claim your insurance tax reliefs. If you have any other questions about filing your tax income, do check out our Income Tax page, or start with any of these articles below:

• How To File Your Taxes For The First Time
• Everything You Should Claim As Income Tax Relief Malaysia 2023 (YA 2022)
• Malaysia Personal Income Tax Guide 2023 (YA 2022)
• Understanding Income Tax Reliefs, Rebates, Deductions, And Exemptions In Malaysia
• Income Tax Malaysia: Quick Guide To Tax Deductions For Donations And Gifts

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• Claiming For Income Tax
• Claiming Tax Reliefs
• Critical Illness Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Education And Medical Insurance
• Education Insurance
• Income Tax 2020
• Income Tax Reliefs
• Life Insurance
• Life Insurance Premium
• Longform
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