KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) already has a solution in place for those complaining about high medical insurance premiums.
As of September, BNM has made it a requirement for all insurers and takaful operators to introduce a co-payment option for medical insurance and takaful products to help reduce high premiums.
The co-payment option requires policyholders to share medical costs with insurers, that can help lower premiums by 19 per cent to 68 per cent, depending on the co-payment level, according to a statement released by BNM in July 2024.
For example, with a 20 per cent co-payment policy, a policyholder would pay 20 per cent of a medical bill, such as RM4,000 for a RM20,000 bill, while the insurer covers the rest.
There is a cap on the maximum amount policyholders can pay.
According to one co-payment offering by a takaful operator sighted by Business Times, the co-payment option was just five per cent cheaper than the revised contribution for the takaful product.
The policy holder's takaful contribution was raised from RM205 a month, to RM238 a month.
The co-payment offering for the takaful product was RM226 a month.
Under the co-payment option for the plan above, while the monthly premium is lower, the policy holder will have to fork out 10 per cent of the medical bill for its next medical incident.
However there is a cap for the amount of borne by the policy holder.
In the instance above, the cap is RM2,000, so even if the bill is RM30,000, the policy holder will only pay RM2,000 because of the cap in place.
BNM believes a greater take-up rate of co-payment options will help reduce medical cost inflation, which reached 12.6 per cent in 2023.