DHAKA, INSURANCE BULLETIN: The Ministry of Finance has directed all life and non-life insurance companies in the country to pay their registration renewal fees for 2026 at a rate of Tk 2.50 per thousand of their gross premium. Disregarding the demands of insurance company owners, the Insurance-2 branch of the Financial Institutions Division (FID) issued an official notice to this effect on Tuesday (June 23).
In a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA), the FID instructed the regulatory body to take necessary measures to collect the fee. The collection is to be executed in accordance with the timeline and rates stipulated in the latest amended official gazette under Rule 3(2) of the Insurance Business Registration Fee Rules, 2012.
Earlier, on April 26, the IDRA sent a letter to the FID seeking a directive or legal opinion regarding the applicable rate against the gross premium for the 2026 registration renewal fees of private insurance companies. The recent directive from the FID comes as a resolution to this inquiry.
Reportedly, on February 4 this year, the FID issued a controversial gazette that hiked the registration renewal fee by two and a half times—from Tk 1.00 to Tk 2.50 per thousand. However, insurance companies have been strongly opposing this fee hike, which is slated for 2026.
Representatives of the companies argue that this abnormal increase will cause the renewal fee for a company with a gross premium of Tk 100 crore to surge from Tk 10 lakh to Tk 25 lakh. The Bangladesh Insurance Association (BIA) has demanded an immediate waiver of the hiked fee, terming it a severe financial burden on the sector.
Conversely, the regulatory body IDRA, in a letter to the FID, clarified that it must cover all its operational expenses from its own revenue. IDRA's expenditures have multiplied significantly due to ongoing initiatives such as digitalization, the implementation of the National Core Insurance Solution, and the establishment of various new institutes. Therefore, the authority justified the necessity of increasing the registration renewal fees for insurance companies.
