Fewer Than 1% Received MySalam Critical Illness Benefit So Far

Only two out of 1,094 claims made under mySalam received the RM8,000 critical illness payment.

KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 — The Finance Ministry revealed that only two out of over 1,000 claims made under the mySalam health scheme have received the RM8,000 lump sum benefit for critical illness to date.

Free Malaysia Today reported that Deputy Finance Minister Amiruddin Hamzah told Dewan Rakyat today that his ministry received 1,094 claims under the mySalam scheme operated by Great Eastern Takaful Berhad as of last Thursday, out of which payments were made for only 97 claims to date.

The mySalam scheme under the Finance Ministry came into effect last January 1, which denies coverage to Malaysians diagnosed with any of 36 critical illnesses before that date, and allowed beneficiaries to make claims starting last March 1.

“To date, we have paid out RM40,200 for 97 claims. Of these, 95 were for hospital admissions and the remaining two for cases of critical illness,” Amiruddin was quoted saying.

He reportedly said processing claims usually took up to a fortnight.

It is unclear if the extremely low 0.2 percent rate of critical illness payouts were due to Great Eastern’s rejections, or because most of the insured did not file for the critical illness lump sum payment and only applied for hospitalisation benefits.

The government-run mySalam scheme provides an RM8,000 lump sum payment upon diagnosis of any of 36 critical illnesses for the bottom 40 percent (B40) of income earners aged between 18 and 55.

The scheme also provides RM50 daily hospitalisation income replacement up to RM700 annually for the B40 who get treated at government hospitals.

Critics have charged that the strict critical illness definitions under the mySalam scheme followed traditional commercial health insurance, questioning if Great Eastern would end up denying coverage to many Malaysians, besides those already disqualified for pre-existing conditions.

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