Impactful and Collective Microtakaful in Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic

Present economic condition during the COVID-19 pandemic affects an uncertain environment to every level of community which leads to a nerve-wracking financial concern. The low-income group or popular known as ‘B40’ group seems to be unswervingly affected by recent instability in the nation’s economy that results to situations having multiple uncertain outcomes requiring them to manage their unique risks and seek protection thereof. Vulnerable in their financial position, COVID-19 poses more threat to the health of the low income-earners group more than others especially when the environment they mostly live in is not adequate for hygiene standard level. Previously, there was a concerted effort taken up by a group of Takaful Operators to provide a micro-Takaful protection to the ‘BR1M’ (‘Bantuan Rakyat 1-Malaysia’/1-Malaysia People's Aid) recipients. It was intended to provide Takaful coverage to the breadwinner of a B40 family with an aim to minimize the adverse effect of a possible financial catastrophic if the sole breadwinner of the family died. Micro-Takaful is a way to jointly attend, cater and mitigate the financial risks, which is in line with the Islamic principle of Harm Prevention. The concept of helping and assisting particularly the unfortunate ones to mitigate risk and reduce losses and sufferings due to misfortune constitute the very aspiration of the micro-takaful principles. This study aspires to examine the extent of effectiveness of the previous collective Micro-Takaful projects on BR1M recipients that were proven to benefit 7.2 million recipients as of in 2018 nationwide. Takaful operators who persistently aiming to become the value-based intermediary (VBI) inspired by the Regulator in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by providing Micro-Takaful to the needy people. The data is mainly from the participating Takaful operators in the previous Micro-Takaful and BR1M project in order to evaluate the present and future direction of micro-Takaful initiative in the present ‘BSH’ (‘Bantuan Sara Hidup’/Living Aid).