COMMENT | Are motor vehicle insurers profiteering from Covid-19?

COMMENT | Last November, I contacted my insurance agent to renew my annual motor insurance. This time, however, this rather mundane routine provoked me to explore deeper which led to this story of questionable matters. What I suspect is that motor insurers have made a profit from the Covid-19 pandemic while making a mockery of motor insurance tariff liberalisation.

This is a personal experience drawn from information readily available online. I hope the regulators such as Bank Negara Malaysia and the Malaysia Competition Commission and industry associations such as Persatuan Insuran Am Malaysia would respond and provide some clarity.

Malaysia has been under lock-down since March last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There are severe restrictions in the movement of people across districts and state, while social activities are curtailed limiting travel only within the neighbourhood. The primary means of travel are motor vehicles. We have seen how perennially congested highways were deserted for the most part of the year, and city roads almost empty even in Kuala Lumpur.

A classic case of this phenomena was the empty highways and roads during the recent Chinese New Year celebrations. For the first time, there was no drive-safely campaigns nor daily depressing statistics of accidents and deaths. Most vehicles were practically cocooned in the house and in parking lots or storage areas.

We can safely estimate that usage of roads by motor vehicles are down to about 20-30 percent from the normal. However, the police reported only a 26.3 percent decrease in accidents with 418,237 cases in 2020 (12.7 deaths daily) compared to 567,516 cases in 2019 (16.8 deaths).

Probably, the seemingly modest reduction in accidents by the police could be due to people being frustrated, angry, or confused ...