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Credit cards are an everyday life in the digital era, but the insurance industry lags behind as most insurance firms do not accept credit card payments, citing high credit card fees as a reason.

This practice has sparked complaints from customers, especially from younger generations who are more comfortable using digital forms of payment rather than cash transactions.

Attention is now focused on whether a bill aimed at obliging insurers to accept credit card payments can be passed at the 22nd National Assembly, which commenced at the end of May.

Under the current law, insurance companies are not obliged to accept credit card payment for insurance premiums, and many firms have been reluctant to allow their customers to pay premiums via card.

According to the Korea Life Insurance Association, the ratio of the life insurance premium paid through credit cards stood only at 3.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, down 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter.

When it comes to non-life insurance premiums, the figure was tallied at 30.5 percent, but car insurance, which has a relatively short window of payment annually, accounted for the highest percentage of payments.

According to industry officials, Hanwha Life Insurance and Kyobo Life Insurance do not accept credit card payments at all, while Samsung Life Insurance accepts payments only from Samsung Card.

"We are well aware of customer complaints over the unavailability of credit card payments, and we know this unavailability restricts customers' rights and interests to some extent. But it cannot be helped under the current payment commission rate," a Seoul-based insurance company official said.

The current commission rate is around 2 percent, while insurers claim that the figure should be lowered to around 1 percent. This has caused years-long conflict between insurers and credit card businesses, as the latter say that the 1-percent range is more than they can shoulder.

The credit card industry also points to equity and fairness issues, saying that it is inappropriate to apply the lower commission rate only for the insurance industry.

Amid differing opinions from various stakeholders, relevant bills designed to mandate the acceptance of credit card payments have been consistently submitted to the Assembly over the last 10 years, but to no avail.

As the 22nd Assembly began its tenure recently, Rep. Lee Jung-mun of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea also submitted the bill to revise the Insurance Business Act. This bill is aimed at penalizing insurers that refuse to accept credit card payments.

It remains to be seen whether the bill will be able to get parliamentary approval this time. But many in the credit card industry said that there is only a slim chance as it is difficult to adjust the commission rate system.

"While the bill remains stalled, customer inconvenience will continue to grow," an official from one of the major credit card companies said.