P0608 Purpose Code: Life insurance claim settlements

P0608 is the RBI purpose code for: Life insurance claim settlements (excluding term insurance) received by residents in India. It sits in group 06, Insurance and Pension, of the receipt purposes RBI uses to classify foreign exchange coming into India.

P0608 at a glance

Can a P0608 remittance become an eBRC?

DGFT's guidelines do not name P0608. They say that for a service export the exporter can attach only invoices whose SAC code matches the description of the service, and that no two purpose codes may be clubbed in one eBRC except with P0103. So where P0608 is the right description of a service you exported, the eBRC is generated with P0608 on its own, or clubbed with P0103, against an invoice whose SAC code matches that service.

The rule is DGFT’s, from its General Guidelines for Generating eBRC (last updated 26 March 2024). The full list, and what each rule means when you map remittances, is in how to generate an eBRC on the DGFT portal.

What this code says about the money

A purpose code is your bank speaking, not you. When a foreign payment reaches your account, the AD bank reports it with a purpose code that states the RBI classification of the transaction, and that report is the Inward Remittance Message, the IRM. A remittance carrying P0608 has been classified as: Life insurance claim settlements (excluding term insurance) received by residents in India.

In FETERS reporting

FETERS is the Foreign Exchange Transactions Electronic Reporting System, the system under which Authorised Dealer banks report their foreign exchange transactions to the RBI, and its receipt purpose list is where P0608 is defined. That list, Annex I to A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 84 dated 29 February 2012, places P0608 in group 06, Insurance and Pension Services, and describes it as: Life insurance claim settlements (excluding term insurance) received by residents in India. That is the wording a bank’s reporting desk works from, so it is the wording to match when you ask the bank what a remittance was reported as.

Service exporters, freelancers included, will find the whole route from remittance to certificate in eBRC for freelancers and service exporters.

P0608 or a neighbouring code

The codes below are the ones most easily confused with P0608. The difference is in RBI’s wording, so the table quotes it, with what DGFT allows for each.

If the code on your remittance looks wrong

The code is attached at reporting time by the bank, so the fix runs through the bank, not through DGFT. Ask the AD branch that received the payment to confirm the classification; an amended report shows up as a revised IRM. What each IRM status means, and what you can do with a remittance in each state, is in the IRM explainer, and the errors DGFT returns when a code does not fit the filing are in IRM mapping errors on DGFT. Exporters who agree the purpose code with their buyer's bank once, at onboarding, rarely meet this page twice.

Other codes in group 06

• P0601Life insurance premiumService export, not named
• P0602Freight insuranceService export, not named
• P0603General insurance and reinsurance premiumService export, not named
• P0605Insurance auxiliary services and commissionService export, not named
• P0607Non-life and term insurance claimsService export, not named
• P0609Standardised guarantee servicesService export, not named
• P0610Premium for pension fundsService export, not named
• P0611Periodic pension entitlementsService export, not named
• P0612Invoking of standardised guaranteesService export, not named

All 10 Insurance and Pension purpose codes