Touché

Insurance agents detected.

"pays out to less than 5% of total clientele [premiums]". Not true. Check your facts. A life insurer will price itself out of business with that pricing assumption.

"actively do their best to deny claims". If you're facing actual claims denied, please file a complaint to Bank Negara as soon as possible, they're very strict and they'll investigate almost immediately.

So much hatred for insurance. If you're not happy with it, you've bought something that probably doesn't fit your needs now. Consider if it fits your future needs and maybe let it go.

Medical policies are expensive because medical costs are extremely expensive and hardly predictable. Part of the reason insurers package medical + ILP together is because the investment return can partially subsidize increasing medical premiums. Its also easier for customers to maintain with only 1 policy. This would of course means customer will bear the investment risk. If you think you can do better returns elsewhere, feel free to go with pure medical and then cover any increasing premium with your own investment profits.

Insurance is something you wouldn't appreciate until you use it one day, yet at the same time, a sane person will hope he/she wont ever use it. It is perhaps not for you if you couldn't understand the kind of value it provides.

To those who are looking for one, I suggest you do your research upfront (very important), then look for reputable agents who've been in this industry for a long time because they're not for quick profits and are likely to suggest something that'll fit you. They're also likely to service you better over the long run. The alternative is do more research, find one yourself and cut out the middle man.

Its not about salah kira. Its about the medical inflation even insurers are having difficulty to catch up with. Feel free to suggest how an actuary can predict medical inflation as accurately as possible for the next 20 to 70 years. Better if you could join the actuaries to solve this million-dollar question.


PS: Me no insurance agent. Me sucks at selling. Doesn't even like agent groups because of too many bad apples. Me just like getting things straight and make everyone understand better from a different perspective.

Edit1:
Having said that, insurance companies itself is not without its flaws. Some of which is because of their own acts:
1. Too kiasi with many T&C in its contracts. Make customers who try to understand them confused.
2. Introduced many complicated products the average person difficult to understand.
3. Customer cannot understand and wont bother complicated products. So need agents to sell. Because need agent to sell, incentivized them with big commission. Big chunk of premium goes to agent instead of customer's account.
4. Because of big commission, attracted many ah beng/ ah lian to join as agents. Agents become more aggressive without truly serving the needs of customer. (Guess which other industry is facing the same problem)
5. Over time become too reliant on agent and sales difficult to grow without agent's push. Customers also slowly notice the product they bought years ago doesn't fit or not up to expectation. Insurer get blamed.
6. Now stuck in dilemma when agent disagree to reduce commission, threaten to move entire agent force to competitor. Hard to break away from them in order to transfer commission savings back to customers.
7. Sometimes the agent force is so powerful that they requested insurance companies introduce complicated products that doesn't provide much coverage with low investment return, but comes with high commission. (Hence the importance for us to do research and filter out these rubbish)

Some are because of the operating environment:
1. The overall health of population. Malaysia is amongst the top with highest rate of type II diabetes. Also high rate of hypertension and high cholesterol which will lead to other fatal medical condition. Meaning high claim frequency from insurance.
2. High medical costs year on year leading to high medical inflation.
3. Low financial literacy amongst the population. Need to rely heavily on agents to explain and sell. Meaning commission savings for agent hard to transfer to back customer.
4. Lackluster return on investments in malaysian environment means more money needed now to pay for future claims (i.e. weak present value effect). The current low OPR examplified this further. Bear in mind insurance companies cannot keep chasing high returns by being too aggressive with their investment or they risk losing money that is supposed to pay for future claims.

In conclusion, if you've decided that you need insurance coverage, do research and choose wisely before committing. Don't buy/ dismiss based on hearsay, dont buy just because agent is pretty or handsome. It's worth some time and effort to find a product that fits your needs.

peace out

This post has been edited by ParkBoGum: Oct 30 2020, 11:57 AM

The problem is the complexity of the various insurance products and not the product itself. It's far too complicated for most people, including myself.

If insurance is really so useless as some people say it is, then why people buy marine insurance, fire insurance, car insurance and health insurance?

I said health insurance.
The others are fine.

It's still an insurance. The purpose of insurance are all the same. To prevent accident but not to make money.

The others have defined parameters that make it easier to regulate.

Life insurance - humans have definite lifespan and statistically, the age that they die can be mapped out a certain period.

Same goes for car accidents or fires.

For health insurance, things are changing rapidly as to treatments, medicine etc. There's plenty of loopholes to make money.

If you think insurance companies are NOT to make money, please go ahead. If so, why are there such strict regulations on insurance companies by the Governments.

beli online insurance je..

etiqa got

Sure they make money. But if we pick the right insurance (pretty difficult to do because it's so complicated), it's a win-win. Unlike some believing it's always a insurance cpg wining and consumer lost.

It's complicated because they want to make money.
Fine to make money, but I just hope they don't go overboard.

Not all companies are terrible, as you said.