COMMENT | Discrepancies in insurance policy, police report drafted
If anything, it helped me to become debt-free at an early age, but as I share this story, you will see how I realised I was cheated by an insurance agent.
Now I asked to buy medical insurance. The agent came to see me at my office and told me I could only purchase medical insurance as a rider to a life insurance policy.
I had no choice but to purchase another policy. I was told the lowest insured amount was RM50,000.
Taking his word for it, I went ahead to purchase the policy only to discover during our class discussion that the minimum one could purchase was only RM5,000!
This made my blood boil and I immediately...
COMMENT | Almost 10 years ago, I attended classes for a Certified Financial Planning course. This was after I read a book by Robert Kiyosaki who advised his readers to pick up some financial literacy.
If anything, it helped me to become debt-free at an early age, but as I share this story, you will see how I realised I was cheated by an insurance agent.
Now I asked to buy medical insurance. The agent came to see me at my office and told me I could only purchase medical insurance as a rider to a life insurance policy.
I had no choice but to purchase another policy. I was told the lowest insured amount was RM50,000.
Taking his word for it, I went ahead to purchase the policy only to discover during our class discussion that the minimum one could purchase was only RM5,000!
This made my blood boil and I immediately wrote to the insurance company to ask for an explanation. I demanded a full refund!
Persistence pays
Of course, the insurance company denied the agent had misrepresented the company. I was even told by the customer service manager that the agent was a top salesperson, and he had not breached any trust.
I insisted that, if I had been told of the minimum amount of RM5,000, I would not have bought another life policy for RM50,000!
The dispute went on for some time and attempts to contact the senior management of the insurance company failed to even get a response.
Finally, after I brought the complaint to Bank Negara Telelink, the matter was resolved. This time, I received a phone call from the vice president of the insurance company, offering to refund the premiums that I had paid.
I gladly accepted the offer. In less than a week, I received the full refund, and the policy that I did not need was cancelled and replaced with a RM5,000 policy. Persistence pays at the end of the day.
Another recent example
Just recently, I discovered I had been paying for a policy that was supposed to enjoy the Disappearing Premium Option (DPO).
It is a new term that I learned, but it simply means the dividends you earn from the policy will be sufficient to pay for the annual premiums. I called it, in layman’s terms, a “self-paying option”.
However, for three years, I had been paying the premiums through auto-payment via my credit card. This was until I realised what the DPO meant and that I shouldn’t have been paying for the premiums.
I wrote to the customer service department and after several emails, the service manager sent me a portion of a form with my signature on it.
Initially, I thought I was in the wrong as my signature was in the box with the words, “Please cancel the DPO.” With that, of course, the customer service manager insisted the company did nothing wrong.
However, I was still insistent that I would never have cancelled the DPO if I understood what it meant.
I queried the agent, who by now had left the insurance company. Whether she was telling me the truth or not, she, too, could not remember what happened.
I did the right thing by insisting that the insurance company return me the premiums, stating one reason I bought the policy in the first place was that I knew it had the DPO to pay the premiums, and I thought I would not have to pay the premium after a certain number of years.
It was not until one fine morning, after nearly three months of follow-up, that I realised my signature was actually made below the words “Not Applicable” stamped on the form.
It had the words “Cancelled” on top of the “Not Applicable.” Only then I realised I had signed to cancel the words “Not Applicable.”
I didn’t know how the sentence “Please cancel the DPO” came to be written on top. I also noticed the handwriting was not mine.
This was when I decided to lodge a police report as I suspected there was a fraud case involved.
The report was drafted, but I decided not to proceed as the agent, now a retiree, would be the first suspect. After all, she had no financial incentive to cancel the DPO on my behalf.
Bank Negara helped
Realising I had a strong case, I brought up the matter once again to Bank Negara. This time, I wrote to them directly instead of copying them in all my correspondence. I also made an attempt to speak to one of the officers via its Telelink.
With just two phone conversations, I realised the officers at Bank Negara Telelink understood my case very well. I must say they set the standard for top-notch customer service in the country.
Immediately, I received a phone call from the insurance company’s customer service manager. Her senior manager also asked to see me personally to get a “Customer Due Diligence” form signed.
I gave both of them a half-hour lecture, asking them to record the conversation to allow their senior managers to listen to my grievances over the past four months of email correspondence.
The solution was, in fact, a very simple one – I had to fill out a form to withdraw the dividends that were supposed to have been used to pay the premiums.
Within just a day or two, the money for the three years of premium was credited to my bank account. But, I want more. I want to educate other insured people not to allow their insurance companies to sideline them.
More information about Bank Negara’s Telelink can be obtained here. Their phone contact: 1-300-88-5465 (Overseas: +603-2174-1717).
This is part four of a five-part series.
Part 1: Persistence pays when dealing with insurance companies
Part 2: My medical insurance journey, uncovered radiotherapy
Part 3: Insurance policy nightmare after changing credit card
Tomorrow: Winning your disputes
STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen who believes everyone, including the insured, has rights that must be protected.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
