Mandatory medical examinations for buying insurance

The Government wants mandatory medical examinations for those intending to purchase personal, life or medical insurance. This follows complaints of non-payment of medical bills by insurance companies in certain claim cases.

Your views please.

Source: The Star

ASM Actuarial Idol

ASM held its first ever Actuarial Idol Singing Competition in conjuction with its 31st Annual Dinner yesterday at Grand Millennium hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

The event was attended by 170 members. 9 groups participated in the Actuarial Idol Singing Competition. The President and the Immediate Past President were invited as the judges for the competition. However, their scores carried only 50% weightage on the final results, the other 50% was dependent on the audience response. It was no surprise to see strong support groups mainly comprising the fellow colleagues of the competition participants making loud noises during the final moment before the results were finalised.

The Actuarial Idol competition was won by Isaac Chiew from Watson Wyatt, with 2 ladies from Prudential and the trio from Great Eastern winning the 2nd and 3rd places respectively. It was a night full of fun, who dare to say that actuaries are a bunch of boring people!

Earlier that afternoon, Surinderpal Singh and Jefferey Zain each presented a professional paper to the members, one on Genetic Underwriting and the other one on Takaful.

During the dinner, ASM also paid tribute to Benny Ng, a fellow actuary who passed away in April this year.

More photos

Videos:

1. Isaac Chiew - My Way


2. All Contestants

Brought to you exclusively by TAS Search, your friendly actuarial recruitment agency

Insurance outlook

Summary of views of various industry players on insurance outlook in 2H 2009:

Great Eastern

• The worst is over, export industry picking up, companies started recruiting
• 2H to be better than 1H
• Expect double-digit growth for whole year
• Distribution channel and products are key growth drivers

LPI Capital

• Export and construction sectors will provide growth
• Marine and fire insurance will benefit
• Need to be prudent in underwriting and have strong claims management in view of rising motor insurance claims (bodily injury and motor theft)

Manulife

• Regardless of economic cycles, insurance performs well
• Stimulus plans are positive
• External factors may affect growth pace
• Equity markets have not stabilised

Source: The Star

Hannover Re's Staff Died in Mumbai Attack

Hema Kasipillay, a Hannover Re's underwriter based in Kuala Lumpur, who had been missing since terrorists stormed the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel on Wednesday night, has been found dead in her room on level six of the hotel.

The postmortem revealed that she had died of smoke inhalation. Hema was in Mumbai to attend a conference. She was with 2 German colleagues who were evacuated. One was holed up in his hotel room for 13 hours before being rescued. The other one was at the business centre on the ground floor and was rescued after 6 hours.

It was Hema's 1st official trip to Mumbai. According to Ravinder Singh, Hannover Re's Deputy General Manager for South and South East Asia, he was in contact with Hema thru text messages for several minutes after the gunmen stormed the hotel. The line was cut off subsequently.

Source: The Star, iReport

Annuity Plus

While annuity is not a common product in this market, it is worth knowing some of the latest development overseas in underwriting and product design of such product.

Legal & General has introduced a product called Annuity Plus, which claims to provide 12% higher annuity payments to certain annuitants.

This is achieved by adding further rating factors in addition to age and gender. Additional information is sought at underwriting stage which includes smoking habits, blood pressure, height & weight, cholesterol and diabetes, post code. Depending on the underwriting outcome, an individual may get additional annuity payment.

Source: Insurance Daily