Fire service levy sparks outrage
Merimbula News Weekly, 13 May 2009
Local insurance broker Kelly Commins said that the cost of the fire service levy and state and federal government taxes linked to it add around 54 per cent to the cost of every insurance policy.
He said the addition of such charges was making home and contents insurance unaffordable and was the main reason that many people were now opting out of taking insurance cover.
This in turn meant that the fire service levy and the new State Emergency Services (SES) tax, which will be levied from July this year, were being borne by a smaller number of people.
Mr Commins, managing director of Austbrokers Southern, said the following example showed how the State Government taxes and levies and the GST were adding to the cost of farm, business and household insurance:
Businesses in NSW pay 36 per cent as a fire service levy.
Mr Commins said the GST represented a tax on a tax, and the stamp duty was a tax imposed on a tax on a tax.
He said that both the National Insurance Brokers Association and the Insurance Council of Australia had been campaigning strongly against the taxes for years without success.
“Insurance isn’t a sin. They shouldn’t be able to tax insurance at the same rate they do alcohol or tobacco or gambling,” NIBA chief executive Noel Pettersen has stated.
Mr Commins said that if people chose not to insure their property then the money received to fund the NSW Rural Fire Brigades would lessen significantly.
He said he strongly supported the move by the Bega Valley Shire Council to make councils responsible for collecting fire service levies, via a separate charge on rateable properties.
Councillor David Hede said that all property owners should contribute to the fire service levy and not only those who were insured.
He said that up to half the homes lost during the recent Victorian bushfires were not insured.
Mr Commins said that the insurance groups were asking all their policy holders to write to their local MPs to protest against the levies and taxes imposed on their insurance premiums.