Hi my mum age is 64 years old. If want to buy medical card with coverage until 100 years old and with no lifetime limit and annual limit of 500k above. The insurance every month will be will high ? Got any suggestions?

Hey bro, do you sign up to join the Public Hearing On Health Insurance? It's a waste if these ideas are just posted in a forum.

i'm in JB, too far to attend, interest to dicuss one pair glove can cost you a leg.

If you don't stick to your premium payment schedule, there is the risk that you would not be able to later claim that the policy is not performing according to expectation when it is unable to meet all those high cost of insurance charges, esp. at the older ages but also before then, as a lot of these older policies and even some of the current ones, have high investment return rates assumed in the pricing (which allowed for the lower premiums). These high rates are not sustainable. You can then claim that it is the insurer or takaful operator who is responsible and should foot the bill. If you plan on investing your spare cash that should have gone to paying premiums in an ETF outside the insurer, then why bother having an investment-linked policy in the first place?

What insurers and takaful operators have sneakily done is to reduce the policy coverage term to ages 70 or 80, compared to the previous term of 100 years+, and thereafter operate the main policy and medical rider on a renewal basis up to ages 100 and above. The way the policies are currently priced, it is highly questionable even as to whether the policy can be sustained up until the end of even the shorter policy terms.

The original sins are the high investment return rate assumptions and the unsubstantiated and ridiculously priced high cost of insurance charges at older ages. This needs to change.

Medical Inflation is a poor excuse. A medical policy with 12.1 claimants per 100 policyholders and average claim amount of RM 25.4k and with a five percent margin for expenses only cost RM 3100 for a person ages 35. And you can still price the medical policy at less than 5k (RM 4600) for someone aged 100 and still sustain such high claim frequencies and average claim payments. Good enough to collect RM39 billion for 12 million lives. Are you telling me we can't solve a significant amount of our medical needs with over RM 3 billion per million lives??????

1) If everyone in the medical pool / investment-linked plan kept to their original premium payment schedule diligently and didn't withdraw anything from their cash values, and if it later turned out that their policies' cash values weren't sufficient to sustain the high cost of insurance charges at older ages, they would have a stronger case to claim that the policy had not performed according to expectation and that the insurer or takaful operator should foot the bill or any additional amounts needed to make the policy sustainable. You wouldn't have such a strong a case if you didn't keep to your original premium payment schedule.

There is nothing lawful or legal about what BNM has allowed when it comes to medical insurance repricing. It is nothing but a crooked sham. No policy can be repriced midway through the contract term unless the insurer or takaful operator is facing a going concern risk. None of them are facing going concern risks. And, regardless of BNM's idiotic policies, no insurer or takaful operator has the right to reprice to maintain profit margins.

Just like how no one in their right mind would accept a hypothetical BNM policy that allows insurers to delay claim payments for up to two years, with or without justification, we should not accept these BNM policies for insurers or takaful operators to reprice investment-linked policies to maintain profit margins as lawful or legal.

Check again. AIA and GE does cover. Even though GE is a bad company they do cover outpatient dialysis.

It doesn't matter who does it. Lapse supported product designs are just wrong. Whether it's another family takaful player (FWD, Great Eastern Takaful, PruBSN Takaful etc.) or another conventional player (Prudential etc.), it's not a fair product design or contract term to not have a fair surrender value or to indiscriminately use the Asset Shares of surrendering policies to sustain future benefit payouts of the other remaining policies. They all need to be called out. That is the point.

Just because a contract term says premium or contribution amounts can be revised does not mean that it is a fair contract term or one that is lawful or legal.

These are all level premium / contribution long term plans. The premium or contribution amounts are set at the policy's inception and cannot be revised later. That is the policyholder's understanding and expectation.

If the ITO wished to review contribution amounts on a regular basis, they should sell yearly renewable products instead of long term ones.

The duty of the insurer or takaful operator is to price the policy  appropriately at the policy's inception. If a pricing error occurs, the ITO would have to foot the bill, not the consumer.

But even with the unlawful / illegal right to review premium / contribution amounts during the ongoing term of the policy, why would an ITO selling lapse supported products be incentivised to exercise it???

The ITO would find it easier to just keep targeting / onboarding vulnerable consumers who are bound to surrender their policies and use their Asset Shares to make up for any deficit rather than risk the wrath of the remaining policyholders.

I'm just stunned that this is happening. I guess I haven't been paying attention. Never thought I would see takaful operators doing this.

Takaful operations by local outfits may have more operational issues compared to their foreign owned or conventional counterparts, but not when it comes to substantive matters like the adopted operational model itself.

Takaful models are supposed to be better as they usually have a clear separation between the savings or pre funding component and the insurance pooling component (tabarru or risk fund).

FWD is a very aggressive HK outfit - HK outfits are desperate for yield, and money is cheap. Just look at how much they spend on marketing.

It must be emphasized that a lapse supported product design does not automatically result in a surplus position within the risk or non-participating funds.

It would only result in a surplus position if the number of surrendering policies exceed expectation. So, if a lapse supported product assumes a 5% surrender rate, a surplus would only arise when the surrender rate exceeds 5%.

The Asset Shares of the expected 5% surrendering policies are required to meet the expected future benefit payouts of the remaining policies - these amounts will have to be reserved for. Anything below the 5% surrender rate will result in the fund being in a deficit position.

No takaful operator can withhold any surplus amount within the fund that is more than necessary for the ongoing operations of the fund. Surpluses within takaful funds belong to policyholders and have to be eventually returned to them.

Having said that, there are other ways of distributing the surplus without "distributing" it. The ITO may sell underpriced or loss making products to underserved segments, with the surplus amounts being earmarked to make up for the difference. Noble though this may be, it is not shariah compliant or lawful or legal as the equity principle is not being respected.

You have to also make the argument that my projections are wrong or faulty in some areas if you would like to make the argument that my 5% lapse assumption might be too aggressive.

My projection shows that even an 8% investment return still yields a deficit during the last year of a RM 2040 annual contribution 30 year Kaotim Legasi plan for a 30 year old male with RM 1 million sum covered.

Even if the investment assets of the fund yield a steady 3% per annum, the policy would still need an extra +5% per annum to make up for the difference. This can only happen if 5% of policies within the pool surrender every year for 30 years. This would release 5% of the total Asset Shares or pre funded amounts within the fund to the remaining policyholders every year.

Surrendering a policy during the middle of a policy term being a foolish decision or otherwise is personal matter that is only of concern to the surrendering policyholder. Not for us to question their conduct.

Foolishness or being foolish is not a license to rob from surrendering policyholders. Their equity is still their equity.

I don't think they would be interested - either the issues are too complex or sensitive.

I tried reaching out to them and having them put out a piece about Great Eastern misappropriating RM 2.37 billion from their participating policyholders to fund the mySalam scheme, but that went nowhere.

I can't imagine them taking on the issues being discussed here.

This is really tragic and comical at the same time.

KJ, Kian Ming & Tony Pua Are Your New Lecturers (Sort Of) At Taylor’s PPE Bachelor’s Programme

Ong Kian Ming and Tony Pua are now lecturing for Taylor's Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) Program.

TP (Part 3: Tony Pua responds to Tun M): I would listen and bring the proposals back to the minister for consideration. Many excellent proposals were sourced via these meetings. These would include the setting up of a RM2 billion MySalam critical illness and hospitalisation fund for the B40, contributed by the insurance industry. This fund has benefited more than 120,000 Malaysians to date…..I would however avoid parties who are only interested in securing contracts via direct negotiation with the government. The minister would always tell me to inform them that in the event the government is interested in the project, an open tender would be called, and they would be invited to participate.

There was no open tender for the mySalam scheme, even after two years of being in operation. This was the finding and opinion of the Auditor General in the LAPORAN KETUA AUDIT NEGARA 2019 SIRI 2.

Tony Pua And Dr Ong Kian Ming Are Helping Out The Finance Ministry For Free

Maybe these two champions can provide their PPE students a detailed international relations, geo-economic/strategic/political and local political/strategic analysis of allowing Great Eastern Malaysia to:

- Swindle RM 2.37 billion from their participating policyholders to fund the mySalam scheme;

- Providing Great Eastern Malaysia RM 569 million in income tax exemption for the amount transferred from the participating fund to fund mySalam; and

- Awarding Great Eastern Takaful the contract to run mySalam without going through an open tender (direct negotiation) and which benefited Great Eastern Takaful through probably over RM 150 million in wakalah (management) fees.

Perhaps also delve into whether mySalam helped PH gain Malay heartland support.

Also, they should do an analysis on why BNM has failed in getting the other foreign insurers to either divest or contribute to the mySalam trust fund.

Our national brain trust. Best believe them.

All jokes aside, this is a very serious matter.

Our Central Bank (BNM) truly did conspire with MOF, Great Eastern Malaysia and Great Eastern Singapore to misappropriate RM 2.37 billion @3 March 2020 from participating policyholders within Great Eastern Malaysia's closed participating funds.

I hope anyone coming to this forum and chancing on this post takes the time to truly understand what happened.

It's not something to be scoffed at or ridiculed.

By all means, please be sceptical of all claims, including mine.

Question everything, but please keep an open mind to what is being presented.

Follow the evidence.

There are plenty of official accounts, including disclosures within Great Eastern Malaysia's financial statements and annual reports that would corroborate, at the very least, the transfer of RM 2.37 billion from their participating funds on 3 March 2020 and subsequent payment of the same amount by Great Eastern Singapore to the mySalam Trust Fund on 5 March 2020.

Please read the following articles within Murray Hunter's Substack to understand what happened.

Billions up in the air? Why haven't other foreign insurers operating in Malaysia complied with the divestment condition?

Guest Editorial: Will Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) be putting pressure on AIA, Prudential, Tokio Marine, Zurich, Chubb and AIG to contribute to the mySalam Trust Fund?

Just a Substack - with screenshots of some of the things I had posted in this forum.

To be frank, communications is not my area of expertise - I don't know how to write things simple enough for a mass audience.

No point writing something technical if the layperson who is actually impacted doesn't get the point and feels there is nothing much they can do about it.

I was hoping for others working in media to carry forward this issue. They are the ones with the platform to spread awareness, not me. But maybe it's too much of an ask.