Fraudulent Insurance Claim - Vietnam

Phú Thọ Provincial Police has detained and launched legal proceedings against members of a scam ring who allegedly intentionally fractured their own bones to fraudulently obtain insurance payouts.

Tạ Minh Châu, 20, a former staff member at the formerly Cẩm Khê District’s medical centre, was identified as the ringleader. Châu is accused of having devised a tightly organized and inhumane scheme for insurance fraud by taking advantage of his professional experience in the healthcare sector, as well as his knowledge of human anatomy and insurance payout mechanisms.

Investigation documents said that Châu personally persuaded many locals in the area to purchase insurance. After their contracts became effective, he inflicted injuries on the policyholders to create claims for compensation.

Châu allegedly injected them with anaesthetics, then used syringes, claw hammers, and other objects to fracture and chip their bones, resembling injuries from real accidents.

He then instructed them to stage fake accident scenes, such as falling due to an electric shock or into a stream, to legitimise medical records.

At least seven of his accomplices have been identified. They allegedly purchased insurance policies under Châu’s instructions and agreed to let him cause injuries to them.

Using Châu’s method, the group is said to have unlawfully obtained more than VNĐ6 billion (US$228,000) from multiple life insurance providers.

Police assessed this scheme as extremely cruel, showing blatant disregard for human life and health. The injuries were also deliberately inflicted at locations on the body that would yield the highest insurance payouts, making it difficult for insurance companies to detect fraud.

Malaysia RM9.4 Billions Medical Claims

Medical claims - rose 5.3 per cent in 2025 from a year earlier, making up the largest share of total payouts at 53.9 per cent, according to the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (Liam).
In its 2025 annual report, Liam said medical claims increased to RM9.4 billion from RM8.9 billion in 2024.

Liam said total claims payouts, including death, disability, medical, bonuses and other benefits, rose 3.4 per cent to RM17.4 billion in 2025 from RM16.8 billion in 2024. Disability benefits, which accounted for 0.9 per cent of total payouts, recorded the sharpest growth, surging 77.4 per cent from RM89 million in 2024 to RM157.9 million in 2025.

Premium Growth - In force premium rose 3.1 per cent to RM50.7 billion from RM49.1 billion in 2024, driven mainly by a 9.4 per cent increase in group policies and a six per cent rise in investment-linked policies. Traditional policies, however, declined 2.9 per cent to RM15.6 billion.

The total sums assured in force rose 2.8 per cent to RM2.11 trillion in 2025 from RM2.05 trillion in 2024, while investment-linked policies recorded a 4.4 per cent increase to RM1.09 trillion in 2025. This was followed by group policies sums assured in force which grew by 2.6 per cent to RM721.3 billion in 2025 whereas sums assured in force of traditional policies fell 2.6 per cent.

Number of Policies - in force edged down 2.3 per cent to 12.7 million units in 2025 from 12.9 million units a year earlier. It noted that investment-linked policies in force increased 1.9 per cent to seven million units, while group policies slipped 1.5 per cent and traditional policies declined by seven per cent.

Several insurers have barred their agents from “engaging in or promoting” cash trust schemes as regulators step up enforcement of these products, which are often marketed with the promise of high or guaranteed returns.

Internal circulars issued across the industry show what looks like a coordinated move to prohibit agents from offering cash trust schemes amid growing regulatory concern about their legality, structure and potential risks to investors.

These shifts reflect a general caution to firm restrictions as the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) begins to assert its oversight on a segment that has long been in a regulatory grey area. The notices issued warn that such schemes are often associated with “high or guaranteed returns”, may involve unlicensed activities and carry the risk of misleading representations.

The industry’s response suggests that regulated financial institutions are moving ahead of formal rules to insulate themselves from any potential fallout. Insurers, whose agency networks often double as distribution channels for a range of financial products, appear particularly sensitive to the risk that agents’ involvement could mislead customers into believing such schemes are regulated.

The circulars explicitly warn that even informal referrals or information-sharing could be construed as endorsement. The circulars stress that the insurance companies do not run cash trust schemes and caution that any involvement by agents could create the false impression of company endorsement. 

Cash Trust Products - which allow clients to place funds with a trustee company to be managed on their behalf, occupy an unusual position in Malaysia’s financial services ecosystem. Unlike bank deposits, these products are not covered by deposit insurance protection. At the same time, they have historically fallen outside the direct supervisory remit of both Bank Negara and the SC, leaving the products in what market participants often describe as a regulatory “no man’s land”.

In practice, some cash trust schemes have been marketed as low-risk instruments capable of generating steady returns, sometimes exceeding 10% annually, through investment activities or money-lending arrangements.

The structures can resemble deposit-taking or pooled investment schemes, but without the licensing requirements imposed on banks, fund managers or unit trust operators. Some also impose lock-in periods of three to five years, with penalties for early withdrawal.

Indonesia Insurance Income Growth Premium Decline 2025

Indonesia's life insurance industry recorded steady growth in coverage and income in the first nine months of 2025, despite a slight decline in premiums, according to the Indonesian Life Insurance Association (AAJI).

AAJI data from 56 life insurers showed the number of insured persons reached 151.56 million as of September 2025, up 12.8% year on year. AAJI claim the increase reflects rising public awareness of the need for long-term financial protection.

Both individual and group segments expanded. Individual policyholders rose 16.9% to 22.32 million, whilst group insured lives increased 12.1% to 129.25 million. Total industry income grew 3.2% to $10.28b (Rp174.21t) in January–September 2025.

Premium income, however, edged down 1.1% to $7.86b (Rp133.22t) due to a fall in single-premium sales as household purchasing power continued to recover.

AAJI said regular premiums remained resilient, rising 5% to $4.90b (Rp83.04t), indicating that consumers are shifting towards more affordable periodic payment products.

Insurance Scam, Tawau, Malaysia

A total of 80 individuals, including 78 Chinese nationals, were charged in the Magistrate’s Court here on Wednesday with jointly engaging in a criminal conspiracy to deceive victims in an insurance scam last week.

According to the charge, the group, which also includes one Laotian and one Myanmar national, allegedly conspired to deceive victims through phone and video calls while impersonating police officers from China, with the offence said to have been committed at a premises in the district at 9.25pm on April 7, 2026.

The offence, framed under Section 420 of the Penal Code and punishable under Section 120B(2) read together with Section 34 of the same Code, carries a penalty of up to six months’ imprisonment, a fine, or both upon conviction.

The court allowed bail at RM3,500 each with two local sureties, while 23 of the accused were separately charged in the Sessions Court with immigration offences committed at the same time, where they pleaded not guilty and were denied bail, with the case fixed for mention on May 25.

Malaysia RESET Medical & Health Insurance

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) is advancing a new base medical and health insurance/takaful (MHIT) plan under its RESET reform agenda, introducing the standardized product as part of broader efforts to manage private health financing pressures. 

The average cost of medical benefits worldwide is expected to rise by 10.3% next year, following increases of 10% in 2025 and 9.5% in 2024. Asia-Pacific is forecast to record the steepest regional increase at 14% in 2026, up from 13.2% in 2025 and 11.8% in 2024, ahead of Latin America, North America, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. Within this environment, BNM is using RESET and the base MHIT plan to respond to affordability concerns, medical inflation, and coverage gaps in Malaysia’s private health insurance and takaful markets.

Focus on affordability, sustainability, and system linkages
Three main recurring themes: premium affordability, long-term sustainability, and the interaction between reforms in health delivery and insurance. 

RESET aims to simplify products and realign incentives
RESET is described as a multi-year program to simplify medical products, increase price transparency, and better align incentives across the healthcare financing chain. The initiative is intended to make private cover easier to understand and more predictable, while supporting its interaction with the public system. 

Insurers Outsource Fund Management

Insurance asset managers in Singapore are increasingly planning to outsource fund management to external experts, showed a study by Clearwater Analytics. The move comes amid growing demand for greater portfolio control and transparency, as insurers navigate more complex investment environments.

Among the 50 Singapore insurance asset managers surveyed, 63 per cent or nearly two-thirds said that they expect to shift more assets to external managers, while 26 per cent foresee a greater share being managed in-house. Only 11 per cent believe that the balance between internally and externally managed assets will remain unchanged.

All respondents surveyed have delegated some portion of their funds to external managers, with the percentage of externally managed funds ranging from 24 to 45 per cent. On average, Singapore insurance asset managers have 34 per cent of their funds managed externally.

Notably, the need for greater control over investment portfolios was the top reason cited by insurance asset managers in the Republic for the shift towards outsourcing fund management, said the study.

This was followed by the need for transparency and reporting. Other factors, such as increased visibility of investment portfolios, and the improved reputation and increased acceptance of using external managers, followed closely as reasons for this shift.
ith data-management challenges set to intensify, 84 per cent of the Singapore respondents plan to increase the diversification of their investments across a wider range of asset classes over the next three years, noted the study. In line with this, average private-market allocations are expected to grow from 20 per cent to 36 per cent of holdings in five years.

As firms seek managers with the required expertise to manage the asset classes they invest in, this should lead to an increase in the outsourcing of portfolio management. It will also result in more data in varied formats and an increasing difficulty in accessing information.

As these trends heighten operational pressures and reshape talent strategies, here were “significant skills and capability gaps” within investment management functions.

The study noted that the top strategies to combat these issues included recruiting people from a broader range of sectors or with a greater diversity of perspectives, hiring more specialists in risk-management roles and adding new tools or platforms to compensate for system deficiencies.

Transferring more risk-management analysis away from spreadsheets and other manual processes, as well as outsourcing more to third parties, were also among the top strategies for addressing these problems.