Unusual Insurance Policies You Can Buy In Malaysia
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Some types of insurance tend to hog the limelight. Personal insurance keeps you safe from expensive medical bills, while car insurance is actually required by law. But there is more to insurance than keeping yourself healthy or your car in working order.
Insurance companies are usually more than happy to keep you covered for a wide variety of situations. Especially for those with niche interests or have special needs. You’ve heard about Beyonce insuring her most attractive body part, or Keith Richards making sure that he is well compensated in the unfortunate event he loses his middle finger.
But what can you, as a regular Malaysian, insure that would be out of ordinary?
Wooden kampung house
Sure there is home insurance, but there is also wooden home insurance. This one specifically caters to traditional wooden kampung houses. It functions very similarly to regular homeowners insurance, covering fire, flood, and lightning damage.
The premiums on wooden houses are lower, seeing that they are cheaper to repair and rebuild. Especially since these houses still feature separate foundations for the washrooms and kitchen. Unfortunately, the available policies do not seem to cover these additional foundations and is limited to the wooden portions of the home.
Policies for pets
Keeping animals is almost as expensive as having children; with the exception that you don’t have to set up a college fund. However, like kids, pets can develop health problems that become costly to cure. Pet insurance is especially useful for purebred animals which are prone to genetic defects.
This policy covers more than just veterinary fees, but also includes coverage for the event that your pet goes missing or dies. It also covers kenneling fees in the event that you need to go on holiday
Golf hole-in-one
Golf tournaments always offer a special prize for a hole-in-one. It’s usually a rather sizeable cash prize, and the organiser doesn’t actually expect to have to pay it out. That said, insurance companies will cover the event that someone manages the legendary shot; preventing the tournament from going into debt just because someone got extra lucky.
ATM withdrawal
Getting cash from ATMs is unavoidable (at least until we all move to digital payments). It’s also quite risky, considering the number of opportunistic thieves waiting to prey on those who have just accessed their hard-earned money. Fortunately, there is an insurance policy for that.
Insuring ATM withdrawal covers the total amount withdrawn for 24 hours. Covering situations like snatch theft or even burglaries. Useful for people who often withdraw large amounts of cash, or those who are extra paranoid about people looking over their shoulders at ATMs.
Domestic maids
Having help at home is a fact of life here in Malaysia. Any family that can afford the cost generally has a domestic maid. However, that person is not usually covered by home or family insurance. Don’t forget that the individual isn’t actually property at home and isn’t part of the family. In fact, the government makes it compulsory to purchase an insurance plan for foreign workers, including those employed as domestic servants.
Separate insurance for maids exists, working like a regular personal injury policy. However, it also often includes coverage for maids that may need to be repatriated to their home countries for whatever reason. Note that this covers repatriation, and not deportation. Which is a very different situation.
Your toy collection
Getting insurance for yourself is important. But what if you have a collection that you love more than your own life? Or at least as much as your own life. In that case, most home insurance schemes actually cover the contents of your house.
For the most part, this is meant to cover things like home appliances and electronics that may be stolen in a burglary or damaged in a fire. But it equally applies to protecting that collection of toys that you’ve been putting together for the last decade or so.
This list is mainly limited to personal insurance for individuals. It doesn’t even begin to touch on the things that can be insured by businesses, but that is a flexible list that can be adjusted to fit many types of enterprises.
Naturally, there is a limit to what can be insured. But it never hurts to ask your provider about expanding the scope of your policy. Sure, it might increase your premiums a little more; but that’s the price you pay for the peace of mind that comes with making sure that you will be compensated for any unfortunate incidents.
