| Wani Roslan |
BRUNEI Insurance and Takaful Association (BITA) organised an Insurance and Takaful Day 2018 themed ‘Insurance and Takaful Do Matter’ at the Atrium of the Times Square Shopping Centre in Berakas, yesterday.
The one-day event was officiated by Managing Director of Autoriti Monetari Brunei Darussalam (AMBD) Yusof bin Haji Abdul Rahman who was the guest of honour.
The highlight of the event was the launching of the QR Code of BITA’s website officiated by the guest of honour.
In his speech, the Managing Director of AMBD said the theme showed the importance of insurance and Takaful to everyone which can provide against financial and social welfare losses.
“A family home destroyed by a fire, for example, can be rebuilt with insurance and Takaful, but without it, the family would have to deal with the additional burden of unexpected losses, unexpected expenses, as well as unexpected displacement,” he said.
He further explained that life insurance and family Takaful can assist with a family’s financial planning and a consultation with a licensed financial planner or life insurance agent can help identify gaps in one’s finances which can be covered by life insurance or family Takaful.
He added that parents can find out how much to save for their children’s education or for their retirement commensurate to their earnings.
The guest of honour also highlighted on the impact of natural disasters to economies and all levels of society.
He then shared that from 2011 to 2017, AMBD has seen an 11 per cent growth in industry premiums.
The number of policies has also increased from 347,282 in 2011 to 593,143 in 2017. Insurance penetration has risen from 1.4 per cent in 2011 to 1.6 per cent in 2017,
“A contributing factor to the increase in life insurance and family Takaful was due to AMBD’s requirement for insurance or Takaful for unsecured financing. At the same time, there has been an uptake in local capacity to underwrite large and complex risks,” he said.
“At a glance, these numbers seem to indicate a rising awareness among the general public of insurance and Takaful. However, I believe there is much more for BITA to do to improve awareness and processes to achieve the targeted penetration rate of 2.0 per cent by 2022,” he added.
“I believe that BITA members should find synergies and areas of collaboration to achieve a credible scale and platform to encourage and promote the development of new products and services. A product targetted to improve the welfare of Bruneians and residents, either in the area of savings or health, would be most welcomed,” he said.
He also pointed out that a collaborative approach could also help achieve the right scale for new technologies rather than being developed by individual companies, and all these would require good cooperation and coordination, strong leadership and governance, renewed focus on improving quality of products and services and more specialised human talent.
The guest of honour toured the exhibition participated by BITA members comprising licensed and registered conventional life and non-life insurers as well as all general and family Takaful operators in Brunei.
Among the participants were AMBD, Centre for Islamic Banking, Finance and Management and Traffic Control and Investigation Department of the Royal Brunei Police Force, Insurans Islam TAIB Family Takaful Sdn Bhd (IITFT) and Insurans Islam TAIB General Takaful Sdn Bhd (IITGT), and others.
Also present was Chairman of BITA Haji Osman bin Haji Mohd Jair, members of BITA, AMBD senior officials, and guests.