I would like to share with malaysiakini readers a genuine aggrieved experience of my own with respect to the insurance industry.

Five years back, after my return from overseas on completion of my tertiary education, my father took out a life-cum-investment policy on my behalf to secure my future. The nominal sum insured was RM200,000.

Having been misleadingly persuaded by the agent that after honouring 13 annual instalments of RM5,000 each (which comes to a grand total of around 65K) my father would be guaranteed an eventual minimum reinbursement of the sum assured (RM200,000). However, the date was not disclosed by the agent.

Much later, I undertook a careful study of that policy and accordingly wrote out a letter to make enquiries with regard to its current and future surrender value up to maturity.

On receiving the reply and reading it thoroughly, I subsequently made a call to the prescribed number of the insurer's head office for guidelines on understanding the schedule listing the guaranteed and unguaranteed surrender values for each year of subscription.

To my dismay, I was rather startled to learn that if I were to surrender the policy before the maturity term of 75 years, the surrender value - which is in substance the amount that I would actually be able to redeem from the policy - would be substantially lower that the total premium that I have paid.

For example, having serviced a total payment of around RM25k in premiums, my current surrender value, based on their internal computation, is barely RM10K, obviously well below the total premiums paid.

I would only get back that assured 200K on reaching the age of 99 years old. Worse, having done some simple calculation by benchmarking the value of this policy with a bank's fixed deposit interest rate of 3.7 percent per annum, I was further shocked to realise that if I were to place that sum of money (65K) in a yearly FD account, I would be guaranteed a return of capital of around RM1.2 million after 75 years!

What a world of difference - RM1 million compared to the pittance of RM200,000 assured under that policy!

Furthermore, I wish to add that even though you or any of us may be assured of an immediate compensation of the sum insured under any given life policy, the truthfulness of that pledge is in turn subject to a considerable degree of uncertainty due to the insurance industry's level of integrity.

There have been numerous occurrences of outright and unfair refusals by the insurance industry to honour their obligations with regards to claims.

Secondly, while liaising with that crafty agent on the range of surrender values I might be entitled to if I were to surrender the policy in the immediate future, he simply remains ambiguous and misleadingly assured me that I would obtain any amount above the sum assured of RM200,000 'if I insist.'

Having gone through the schedule of the list of forecasted surrender values for each subsequent year, I was immediately pleased with the sum of around RM2.5 million that I might get back after 75 years.

Nevertheless, after notifying the wordings 'not guaranteed', I instantaneously was plunged into deep disappointment and after a sensible analysis, finally came to realise that it would unrealistic for the insurance company to refund me a sum of RM2.5 million in return for merely RM65K in premiums.

I finally made the firm decision of surrendering that delusive policy immediately so as to avoid further losses through further premium contributions. I hereby would like to appeal to anyone of you who intend to buy any insurance - especially life policies - to think twice before you make a commitment.