Malaysia: Motor claims increase in 1H2019 despite fall in vehicle theft
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Oct 2019
Motor insurers paid out an average of MYR14.9m per day in property damage, bodily injury and vehicle theft in the first six months of the year, said the General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM) when it gave an update on the 1H2019 performance of the non-life sector.
The figure was higher than the daily average of MYR14.8m paid out in motor claims in the first half of 2018.
In a statement, PIAM said that vehicle theft continued to decline for the sixth consecutive year. The total number of stolen vehicles went down by 26% from 7,027 to 5,173 vehicles for all classes during the first half of 2019.
Although road fatalities decreased 6.7% from 6,740 in 2017 to 6,284 in 2018, the number of road accidents continued to go up. Based on statistics published by the Ministry of Transport, a total of 548,598 accidents were recorded in 2018 (2017: 533,875 accidents; 2016: 521,466 accidents). The number of accidents increased by 12% over a three-year period from 2015.
PIAM chairman Antony Lee said, “PIAM will adopt a targeted and focused approach in an industry-wide effort to inculcate safe driving behaviour and reduce road accidents. The plan is to implement this at state level by zooming in on the high accident-prone areas and collaborating with relevant authorities and enforcement agencies.” A