Sask residents oppose PST on insurance

July 27, 2017, 3:54 am

More than 78 per cent of people in Saskatchewan oppose the Saskatchewan government’s decision to charge PST on insurance premiums, according to an Insightrix poll commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).

“People in Saskatchewan are sending a clear message: it’s a mistake to charge the PST on insurance premiums,” said Todd MacKay, the CTF’s Prairie Director. “Premier Brad Wall has always said he’ll fix mistakes and charging PST on insurance premiums is a big mistake that needs to be fixed.”

Insightrix asked 802 respondents: “Do you support or oppose the Saskatchewan government’s decision to charge PST on all insurance premiums?” That question prompted the following responses:

Strongly oppose – 55 per cent;
Somewhat oppose – 23.6 per cent;
Somewhat support – 12.5 per cent;
Strongly support – 2.4 per cent; and,
Not sure – 6.6 per cent.

“Charging the PST on insurance comes with an obvious risk,” said MacKay. “Hitting premiums with the PST will run up insurance costs by hundreds of dollars for families and thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for farmers and small businesses. More than a third of Saskatchewanians say they’ll have to reduce coverage or stop renewing some policies and that means people will have less protection when bad things happen.”

Insightrix also asked this question: “How will your household change its insurance purchasing plans once PST is charged on all insurance premiums?” That question prompted the following responses:

Reduce insurance coverage (such as downgrading the level of home insurance coverage, purchasing less crop insurance, etc) – 20.3 per cent;
Stop renewing some policies (such as cancelling a package policy on a vehicle) – 13.8 per cent;
Our household won’t change its insurance purchasing plans – 48.6 per cent; and,
Not sure – 25.4 per cent.
The Saskatchewan government already collects $150 million through taxes on insurance premiums and PST charges will add more than $200 million in new costs for Saskatchewanians.

A total of 802 randomly selected SaskWatch Research panel members participated in the online research study on July 12 through 14, 2017. Quotas were set by age, gender and region to match the general population of the province. Since the research is conducted online, it is considered to be a non-probability proportion sample and, therefore, margins of error are not applicable.