The Insurance Authority (IA) has announced the extension of temporary facilitative measures for non-face-to-face distribution of specific insurance products for another three months to 30 September 2020. This was announced in view of the latest developments of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The IA introduced two phases of temporary facilitative measures in February and March 2020 to allow non-face-to-face distribution of protective products, including Qualifying Deferred Annuity Policy (QDAP), Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS) products, term life policies, refundable policies without substantial savings component and renewable policies without cash value.
To protect policyholders, insurers and intermediaries have to perform upfront disclosure at the point-of-sale and apply an extended cooling-off period of no less than 30 calendar days for the policyholders to seek professional advice if found necessary.
The extension of the temporary facilitative measures was communicated to authorised long-term insurers via a circular issued by the IA.
Chief Executives of authorised insurance companies carrying on long term insurance business were informed:
- Further to our circular on 27 March 2020 regarding Phase 2 of the temporary facilitative measures (“TFM”) to obviate the need to conduct face-to-face (“F2F”) meetings in order to minimize the risk of infection during the sale process of insurance policies, the Insurance Authority (“IA”) sees the need to extend it in view of the current pandemic situation.
- In this regard, Phase 2 of the TFM will be extended by three months to 30 September 2020 (based on policy application date) unless otherwise varied by the IA. For the avoidance of doubt, the scope of products covered and the implementation details remain unchanged.
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