PMJJBY and PMSBY explained: ₹2 lakh cover, premium, eligibility and claims (2026)

PMJJBY and PMSBY are two small covers on a savings account. Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana pays if the member dies, from any cause. Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana pays if an accident causes death or a defined disability. Both run one year at a time. The premium is auto-debited from the account.

The rules on the Jan Suraksha portal have been in force from 1 June 2022. A Press Information Bureau note of 18 August 2025 repeats the same cover, age and premium. Neither scheme has a hospital benefit or a maturity value. Sukanya Samriddhi and NPS are savings accounts on the government schemes page. These two are insurance.

What are PMJJBY and PMSBY?

PMJJBY is a life-insurance scheme. The rules call it cover for death due to any reason. It is offered through LIC and through other life insurers that agree to the same terms, with a bank or a post office. The bank or the post office is the master policy holder. You are the member. You do not buy a separate policy document from an agent as the first step. You give consent, and you allow the auto-debit.

PMSBY is an accident-insurance scheme. It covers death or disability on account of an accident. It is offered through public-sector general insurers and other general insurers on similar terms, again with a bank or a post office as the master policy holder. Illness, old age, and a death that is not an accident are outside PMSBY. Those are the point of PMJJBY, once the lien described below has passed.

You can hold both. They answer different events. The premium does not come back. It buys that year’s cover.

How much cover and premium does each scheme give?

The amounts below are the ones in the revised rules, and the ones PIB repeated on 18 August 2025.

PMSBY’s total disability is the total and irrecoverable loss of both eyes, or of the use of both hands or both feet, or of the sight of one eye and the use of a hand or a foot. The partial benefit is the total and irrecoverable loss of the sight of one eye, or of the use of one hand or one foot. The rules use those words. A smaller injury is not given a third amount.

Until a later revision, the bank debits the 1 June 2022 figures. Of the PMJJBY premium, ₹395 goes to the insurer, ₹30 is commission on a new enrolment, and ₹11 is the bank’s admin expense. An electronic enrolment passes that commission back by reducing the premium. The rules do not print a second total, so the published premium stays ₹436. PMSBY sets aside ₹1 as commission and ₹1 as bank admin, and passes a saved commission back the same way.

A PMJJBY member who joins after 31 May does not pay the full year for the months already gone. The rules set four amounts. June, July and August are the full premium. Later quarters step down.

PMSBY does not use that step-down. The rules say you can join later by paying the full annual premium. If the auto-debit happens after 1 June, cover starts on the date of that debit.

Who can join, and how long does the cover last?

Both schemes need a savings account at a participating bank or a post office. Aadhaar is the primary KYC. PMJJBY entry is age 18 completed to 50 nearer birthday, and cover can run to 55. PMSBY runs from 18 to 70.

One person joins through one account. A second PMJJBY premium does not raise the ₹2,00,000 cap, and the extra premium can be forfeited. PMSBY is restricted to one account the same way. A joint account can be used. The member is the person enrolled, not every name on the account. Consent for the year from 1 June to 31 May is due by 31 May. There is no paid-up value and no surrender value in these rules.

PMJJBY’s lien is the part families miss. For a subscriber enrolling for the first time on or after 1 June 2021, insurance cover is not available for death other than by accident during the first 30 days from enrolment. No claim is admitted for that non-accident death. The lien also applies if you exit and then rejoin on or after 1 June 2021. Accident death during those 30 days is still a claim. PMSBY’s rules, checked on the same portal, do not add this waiting period.

How do you enrol, renew, or stop the auto-debit?

Enrolment is the consent form and the auto-debit mandate at the bank or the post office. You can give it at the branch. You can also give it electronically, which is the bank’s own net banking or the channel the bank has opened for the scheme. The Jan Suraksha website, jansuraksha.gov.in, is the Department of Financial Services page that hosts the rules, the forms and the claim papers. The enrolment itself is the instruction on your account.

The bank or post office debits the premium in one instalment and remits it to the insurer. For a regular PMJJBY enrolment the rules ask banks to remit by 30 June. For PMSBY, banks are asked to deduct in the month you give the auto-debit, preferably in May, and to remit that same month. Keep the acknowledgement. The rules allow that slip to double as a certificate of insurance.

Renewal is the next year’s auto-debit, before the new cover year. Leave enough balance for the premium. If the balance is too small on the due date, or you close the account, the cover stops. PMJJBY can be put back when the right premium is received, and the rules then treat the cover as fresh, so the 30-day lien applies again. PMSBY can be reinstated on a full annual premium, and during the gap the cover is suspended. Reinstatement of PMSBY is at the insurer’s discretion, on conditions the insurer lays down.

To stop, withdraw the auto-debit consent at the same bank or post office. Exiting is allowed. You can rejoin in a later year while the scheme continues, on the rules above. Do not rely on a zero balance as the only way to stop. A later credit can be debited, and a missed debit can lapse the cover without a clean exit.

How do you claim, and who is the nominee?

The nominee is the person named to receive the money if the member dies. You name that person when you enrol. If the nominee is a minor, you also name an appointee. If there is no nominee, or the nominee has died first, the claim form is for the legal heirs. PMSBY disability claims are filled by the insured member, because the member is alive. Death claims are filled by the nominee.

File with the bank or post office that debited the premium. The claim-cum-discharge form asks for the papers preferably within 30 days of the death for PMJJBY, and of the accident for PMSBY. “Preferably” is the word on the form. The branch fills a part from its own enrolment record, including the debit date.

PMJJBY proof of death can be a death certificate from the local registrar, a hospital discharge summary naming the person and the cause, a last-attending doctor’s certificate countersigned by a gazetted officer or a bank or public-sector insurer, or a certificate from the district magistrate or an executive magistrate. An accident death inside the first 30 days also needs the accident papers: FIR or panchnama and a post-mortem, or the magistrate’s certificate, or a hospital record for an accident such as a snake bite.

PMSBY death papers are the accident set: death proof, an FIR or panchnama and a post-mortem, or the magistrate’s certificate, or the hospital record. Disability papers are an FIR or panchnama, a civil surgeon’s disability certificate, and a hospital record. Both forms ask for the claimant’s KYC (Aadhaar, voter ID, MGNREGA card, driving licence, PAN or passport), a cancelled cheque or account statement, and legal-heir proof when the claimant is not the nominee. The member’s Aadhaar and PAN are useful, not mandatory.

The person claiming signs a declaration that the same death or accident has not already been paid on another account. The advance receipt on the form discharges the insurer when the amount is paid. The sum on that receipt is the scheme amount: ₹2,00,000 for PMJJBY, and ₹2,00,000 or ₹1,00,000 for PMSBY.

Where do you complain if a claim stalls?

Start at the branch or post office that enrolled the account. They hold the consent and the debit, and the insurer can ask them for it. If the papers are in, the next desk is the insurer on the acknowledgement. The claim form asks you to file preferably within 30 days. It does not set a payout clock. The Jan Suraksha site publishes a national toll-free number, 1800-180-1111, and a second number, 1800-110-001. Keep the account number, the debit date, and a copy of the claim form.

Do the premiums reduce income tax?

The Jan Suraksha rules do not mention income tax. Section 123, read with Schedule XV (this was Section 80C), can include a life-insurance premium on your own life, your spouse, or your child. For a policy issued on or after 1 April 2012, only the premium up to 10% of the sum assured counts. On this cover that line is ₹20,000. ₹436 sits under it, inside the shared cap of ₹1,50,000, and only when you are not under Section 202 (this was Section 115BAC). The section 123 guide is the basket. The section-number guide is the crosswalk.

PMSBY is accident cover, not that life-insurance line. This page does not treat ₹20 as a section 123 deduction.