New Arrival

Author : Lee Hock Lock

Publisher : Oxford University Press

ISBN : 9835600309

Call Number : 368.95951 LEE

Summary:

Insurance companies were among the first financial institutions to set foot in Malaysia. The services they provided have expanded and become a necessary support for the conduct of most economic activities. However, hardly any serious work has been written on the industry. This book intends to fill the gap.

Besides tracing the industry’s history, the book focuses largely on its problems and developments from 1963 and how public policy attempted to reshape it for a more effective and increasing role in the expanding Malaysian economy.

Since 1963, a formidable regulatory framework governing conventional insurers in Malaysia has been built up which sought to achieve, among other aims, safe and sound insurers, availability of adequate safeguards for the rights of consumers of insurance products and, a reorientation of the industry to meeting national economic needs. The changes effected on the industry have been impressive. This book offers a detailed look at the landmark legislation, the Insurance Act 1963, all the amendments to the Act over the following thirty-three years and, the omnibus Insurance Bill 1996. By way of background, the pre-1963 insurance laws have also been looked at. In addition, there is a close examination of other supplementary measures, such as the guidelines imposed on the industry by the regulatory authority, the government’s policy actions, and the industry’s self-regulating rules.

The book also provides a review of the emergence and developments in Islamic insurance in Malaysia and the law governing it.

All these, together with the wealth of statistics analysed and presented, make this book a valuable source of reference for insurers, their intermediaries, insurance regulators, researchers, and the general public.

The author is Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Malaya.