Forced to buy other insurance products

Dear Mr. Tan Kin Lian,
I was motivated to write to you as you seem to speak up if an insurance company is doing things that are unfair to their consumers.

My insurance company X recently sent a letter as follows, "We will not renew your Workmen Compensation because you do not have any property insurances with us. If you are interested in insuring other commercial insurance products with us, we will be very willing to assist you."

I called the representative who said that X has decided to stop providing the Workmen Compensation as a standalone product, unless we also buy another commercial property insurance e.g. shop fire or theft. The company was not making money from the Workmen's Compensation, and require a second product as a bundle.

I was very upset as this seems to me that X is trying to force us to buy another product (fire/ theft), knowing full well we are required by law to buy the first product (workmen compensation). The representative said that other insurance companies had adopted this practice as well.

I cannot accept this unfair and unethical practice, especially if the industry players have ganged up to change this.

I wanted to find out if MOM and MAS are aware of and condone this practice. I was directed by a FiDREC officer to call an officer in MAS. The officer insisted that this was just a "bad commercial decision" and MAS cannot interfere.

I find it disappointing that MAS as a regulatory organisation is apparently helpless against bad industry practices. It seems that insurance companies are at liberty to do as they wish. Is there any authority for me to complain to, who will look into this matter?

REPLY
I am sorry that you were not given a satisfactory answer by X, FiDREC or MAS. Do you like to bring this matter up to the newspaper? Maybe, a journalist will be happy to write this story.

In USA, for the classes of insurance that are made compulsory (e.g. motor and worker compensation), the regulator set up a "residual market". Any consumer who is not able to get insurance from the private insurance market can approach the "residual market" to get insurance.

I think that the "residual market" is a better approach, compared to the practice of requiring the consumer to buy another insurance product that may be unnecessary. I hope that MAS will look into this matter.