KUCHING, June 15, 2015: The recent earthquake disaster underscored the call by insurance providers such as Prudential Assurance Malaysia Bhd (Prudential) to prepare for the unforeseeable.
Prudential Bhd chief executive officer Philip Seah affirmed
that the bedrock of life and medical insurance has always been about preparing
for the unexpected.
“We would encourage every Malaysian to have adequate
financial protection, be it in an event of a natural disaster, critical
illness, accident or death,” he told The Borneo Post via email earlier this
week.
“Currently, the combined life insurance penetration rate in
Malaysia is at 56 per cent, combining both conventional and takaful, which
means that only half of the population have some form of life insurance.”
Currently, concerns come in the form of coverage in terms of
life insurance as well as insurance for assets and properties. It is noted that
generally, houses in Malaysia are not covered for earthquake insurance. In regards to life insurance policies, Seah
affirmed that there are no exclusions on death and medical claims that are a
result of a natural disaster.
However, Prudential’s Personal Accident policies do cover
natural perils including earthquakes.
“Having said this, the terms and clauses vary from policy to
policy so we would encourage all policyholders to review their policy document
for exclusion clauses,” Seah commented.
One of the challenges that the industry will need to
continue to address, Seah said, is increasing consumers awareness as well as
the understanding of insurance and general financial planning matters.
“Consumers need to be better informed to be able to make
informed decisions about their insurance investments,” he underscored.
Speaking further on the group’s efforts to create awareness,
Seah touched on Prudence Foundation which is done in relation to disaster
awareness education.
Prudence Foundation is the community investment arm of
Prudential in Asia and its mission is to make a lasting contribution to Asian
societies through sustainable initiatives focused on the three key pillars:
Education, Children and Disaster Preparedness and Relief.
Prudence Foundation has a public service initiative called
Safe Steps which is aimed at providing people with key educational messages on
how to prepare for natural disasters.
“It has been developed in partnership with National
Geographic Channel and with international boxing champion and humanitarian
Manny Pacquiao as the programme ambassador.
“We hope to be able to create more awareness surrounding
disaster preparedness by leveraging on Safe Steps’ educational videos and
information.”
Source: Borneo Post Online
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