On 7-8 July, 2010, I had conducted a seminar/workshop entitled "Family Takaful Products & Processes" at IBFIM training centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The seminar was attended by 23 participants comprising of those from Indonesia, Brunei and of course Malaysia. Participants are from takaful, insurance, banking, training and regulatory sectors who are interested to enrich their knowledge in the field of family takaful. It was a good seminar to me as well as the participants as we were able to share the latest development in the respective field and country. For instance, regulator in Indonesia had recently revised the benefits or sum covered for investment linked type of products which make it much higher than the normally practice in most countries including Malaysia. Commonly, the sum covered is equal to 125% of single premium or fund value, whichever is higher. However, the revised benefits in Indonesia is equal to 125% of single premium (or contribution in takaful) PLUS the fund value. This is new to the industry and the Actuary should review their actuarial certificate accordingly. We are interested to know the rationale for such revision by the regulator. As for Brunei, not much development except 2 of the takaful operators are in the process (or perhaps had completed) of merging. Obviously, the process of completion till normal operation will take quite sometime taking into consideration of many factors including strategic planning, marketing strategies, human capital differences, assets and liabilities structures, etc. Some merging exercises require an external party which is independent and professional to oversee the merging and be the mediator in areas which are conflict between the entities. This is similar to a bankassurance or bankatakaful critical success factor where the bank and insurance or takaful shall appoint a third party to advise on the processes and strategies in order to avoid conflicts. As for Malaysia, the 2 new takaful licences had yet to be issued by Bank Negara Malaysia despite of few postponements. There must be really good reasons why BNM had yet to decide the successful contenders. I know few big corporations locally and internationally had applied for the license. Let's wait and see the result.
Overall, the seminar was very successful where I had shared with the participants on several actual case studies for their analysis. They were good case studies to learn on decision making processes and can't be found in any textbooks anywhere. Last but not least, thank you to IBFIM for the confidence on me to conduct the seminar. Thank you also to all the participants for your active participation and interest.
