Villagers say insurance agent deceived them over policies

Somroutai Sapsonboon,

Chartchaval Kaewkrajai

The Nation

LOPBURI: -- More than 50 villagers in Lop Buri claim they've been duped by an agent of SCB Life Assurance into buying life insurance policies when they sought loans from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), their leader said.

Rossukhon Jampadib, 40, a member of the Chon Noi Tambon Administrative Organisation in Pattananikhom district, said the villagers were duped into buying the deposit-type of policies along with mortgage life insurance, as a condition for obtaining loans from the BAAC.

Worse still, several of the villagers' applications for mortgage life issuance and deposit life insurance were rejected - but they were not informed and their insurance premiums were not returned, Rossukhon said.

The irregularities about the life insurance policies came to light after Winai Nooseng, a debtor of BACC, died. He had applied for a mortgage life insurance policy from SCB Life - but when his mother, Pralam Nooseng, 68,told the BACC of his death and asked the bank to claim the remaining debt from SCB Life, she was told her son's insurance application had never been approved.

When Winai's case was learned by other villagers, they became frightened they might have lost their insurance premium money too, so they formed a group to seek help from Rossukon to file complaints with the police.

Rossukhon said about 50 BAAC debtors lodged complaints with the Pattananikhom police station on December 6.

SCB Life sent representatives to negotiate with the affected villagers, said Jamnong Sala, who claimed to have been duped to buy both types of insurance policies.

Jamnong said the insurance agent refused to give him receipts, but promised that they would be sent to him along with the insurance policies.

"The problem is villagers are now not certain whether their insurance applications have been rejected like Winai's or not," Jamnong said.

Rossukhon said the affected villagers had paid their insurance premiums in June and July but so far none had received copies of their insurance policies.

She said when the villagers applied for loans, they were told by BAAC officials that they had to buy mortgage life insurance or else their loans would not be approved.

Rossukhon said the insurance agent was stationed at the BAAC branch to sell the insurance policies and had told the villagers they were obliged to buy two types of policy. The second type would allow them to get back their premium fees plus interest after 20 years.

The villagers were charged Bt600 for each Bt100,000 loan following the mortgage life issuance, and Bt34,000 a year for deposit life insurance.

Pol Colonel Kiarttipong Thongpian has summoned Wutthisak Thaothampitak from the BAAC Pattananikhom branch and Thaninrat Lertkitti, an employee of SCB Life, for questioning following complaints by the villagers.

Thaninrat told the villagers that the second type of insurance policy had nothing to do with the mortgage, but was a normal deposit life insurance.

Thaninrat said the insurance agent in question had resigned. He declined to give his name.

Thaninrat said SCB Life would need a month to investigate the cases of the villagers.

Kiarttipong said he would take legal action against the insurance firm if the villagers had lost their money and he would make sure all the villagers got their money back.

Sunthorn Sukprasit said he had bought two types of insurance policies. Had he learned the second policy was a normal life insurance policy and had nothing to do with the mortgage, he would not have bought it.

"I have already three life insurance [policies] so why I should buy more? The sum of over Bt30,000 is not [a small amount] for us," Sunthorn complained.

Boonthai Kaewkhandee, assistant manager of BAAC, said the co-operative had coordinated with SCB Life to check the number of BAAC debtors who had paid for the insurance premiums that were later disqualified.

Boonthai said the insurance firm had learned of the problems and promised to return the premiums to villagers.

Boonthai said BAAC officials from their head office would visit Lop Buri tomorrow to investigate the exact number of affected villagers and would do everything to help them.

-- The Nation 2012-12-10

No way, this cannot be true .. especially not in Thialand

BAAC involvement in this also needs to be investigated.

No way, this cannot be true .. especially not in Thialand

I am not sure which parties are the corrupt ones-----I would agree with the villagers, but most of them would do the same if they worked for the insurance companies

No way, this cannot be true .. especially not in Thialand

I am sorry to say that corruption does officially happen in Thailand

Mrs R prefers not to visit our bank, as she finds it hard to resist the constant attempts to sell her products/cover she doesn't need, strangely enough they rarely try the same ploy with me ?

I can well understand the reluctance of humble villagers to stand up to this misrepresentation, or mis-selling by a local figure, it can also happen overseas, the banks in the UK have had to pay serious compensation for mis-selling un-necessary insurance-protection-policies to borrowers over the past decade.

One can only hope that SCB will be embarrassed into compensating the villagers, by the poor publicity they will otherwise get, from this affair. Perhaps their local MP might also take up the case in Parliament ?

Or perhaps not, as embarrassing companies or poo-yais isn't really done, even under a government-supposedly-for-the-people.

Edited December 10, 201213 yr by Ricardo

Mrs R prefers not to visit our bank, as she finds it hard to resist the constant attempts to sell her products/cover she doesn't need, strangely enough they rarely try the same ploy with me ?

I can well understand the reluctance of humble villagers to stand up to this misrepresentation, or mis-selling by a local figure, it can also happen overseas, the banks in the UK have had to pay serious compensation for mis-selling un-necessary insurance-protection-policies to borrowers over the past decade.

One can only hope that SCB will be embarrassed into compensating the villagers, by the poor publicity they will otherwise get, from this affair. Perhaps their local MP might also take up the case in Parliament ?

Or perhaps not, as embarrassing companies or poo-yais isn't really done, even under a government-supposedly-for-the-people.

My Thai daughter in law was convinced to start a life assurance policy on her mother (an old lady) which had basically no benefits, plus a health insurance policy on her mother costing an absolute fortune, and there would be no way whatever that the old lady would ever step foot inside any hospital (very determined old style Thai lady in her 70s, she believed in herbal and spiritual remedies only, and the sales girl knew this very well).

Seller was my DILs 'best friend' from high school.

When my son found out his wife was paying a fortune every month to this girl, he also discovered that his wife has no documents, son challenged the sales girl who responded with:

- 'Policy holders are not allowed to have insurance documents, that's the Thai law'.

- 'Policy holders are not allowed to contact the company office, that's the Thai law'.

- 'I don't have a supervisor, and there is nobody who you can contact, that's the Thai law'.

- 'Policy holders cannot cancel the policies, that's the Thai law'.

The sales girl spoke good English, I told her that 'not allowed to have documents' cannot be true and I demanded that she provide the policy documents in Thai and in English.

Her response: 'The Thai law forbids any business documents from being written in English or Thai and English. If I write something in English I can go to jail'. And more...

The Thai bank concerned (in partnership with offshore very high profile insurer) were initially uncoperative to even discuss the whole thing until I got a response from the insurance partner in England, and I also got the name and e-mail address of the bank CEO. I sent him the e-mail from England. He quickly changed his attitude.

The policies were cancelled quickly, but next step was the sales girl coming to our condo and abusing my DIL, plus 'your not a very good friend, I have now lost my commissions'.

Son threw her out plus threw her bag and documents in the condo hallway.

Later discovered she was banned as a salesperson for that company and was already on the banned list of _ _ _, probably the highest profile assurance company in Thailand.

But she now sells for another insurance / assurance company.

Beware.

Edited December 10, 201213 yr by scorecard

The worst companies for this are the ‘Life’ companies eg AIA and Muang Thai (seen them selling Life insurance from a temporary table set up in the entrance to Big C !)

Mrs R prefers not to visit our bank, as she finds it hard to resist the constant attempts to sell her products/cover she doesn't need, strangely enough they rarely try the same ploy with me ?

I can well understand the reluctance of humble villagers to stand up to this misrepresentation, or mis-selling by a local figure, it can also happen overseas, the banks in the UK have had to pay serious compensation for mis-selling un-necessary insurance-protection-policies to borrowers over the past decade.

One can only hope that SCB will be embarrassed into compensating the villagers, by the poor publicity they will otherwise get, from this affair. Perhaps their local MP might also take up the case in Parliament ?

Or perhaps not, as embarrassing companies or poo-yais isn't really done, even under a government-supposedly-for-the-people.

My Thai daughter in law was convinced to start a life assurance policy on her mother (an old lady) which had basically no benefits, plus a health insurance policy on her mother costing an absolute fortune, and there would be no way whatever that the old lady would ever step foot inside any hospital (very determined old style Thai lady in her 70s, she believed in herbal and spiritual remedies only, and the sales girl knew this very well).

Seller was my DILs 'best friend' from high school.

When my son found out his wife was paying a fortune every month to this girl, he also discovered that his wife has no documents, son challenged the sales girl who responded with:

- 'Policy holders are not allowed to have insurance documents, that's the Thai law'.

- 'Policy holders are not allowed to contact the company office, that's the Thai law'.

- 'I don't have a supervisor, and there is nobody who you can contact, that's the Thai law'.

- 'Policy holders cannot cancel the policies, that's the Thai law'.

The sales girl spoke good English, I told her that 'not allowed to have documents' cannot be true and I demanded that she provide the policy documents in Thai and in English.

Her response: 'The Thai law forbids any business documents from being written in English or Thai and English. If I write something in English I can go to jail'. And more...

The Thai bank concerned (in partnership with offshore very high profile insurer) were initially uncoperative to even discuss the whole thing until I got a response from the insurance partner in England, and I also got the name and e-mail address of the bank CEO. I sent him the e-mail from England. He quickly changed his attitude.

The policies were cancelled quickly, but next step was the sales girl coming to our condo and abusing my DIL, plus 'your not a very good friend, I have now lost my commissions'.

Son threw her out plus threw her bag and documents in the condo hallway.

Later discovered she was banned as a salesperson for that company and was already on the banned list of _ _ _, probably the highest profile assurance company in Thailand.

But she now sells for another insurance / assurance company.

Beware.

The commissions on this stuff are very significant, and they really push the policies that gain best commission against what people actually need. It is indeed a minefield to identify what the best policy is, and there is very little transparency or agents who sell all the companies policies so that you can compare them easily. The strategy really is to sell to close friends and family to boost trust, but we have been approached by dozens of unscrupulous sellers over the years.

Fortunately, we found one, a very close friend of my wife who goes the extra mile to admit if her company doesn't have a policy that fits the need, and even visits hospitals to make sure they aren't gouging the bill on a health insurance for example. For example, at a school where my kids were, they had health policies for the foreign teachers provided by a relaitive of one of the adminstrator women at the school.

All looked ver good until one of the teachers got very sick, and it turned out that the policies were not the "top" grade policies they had paid for but were bronze, so the school was on the hook for a massive bill. The person who had sold them was the "top" seller in the office, so no other rep was allowed to touch any of their accounts, but as it turned out, the company lost all the business with that school. Another friend of ours has literally dozens of policies pushed onto her by a relative, half of which are absolutely useless investments for which she pays a significant amount every month, but she is too scared to embarras her relative and cancel them.

All in all, very unethical.

There's a lot of unethical insurance selling going on in Thailand (and other places as well). My GF often comes back from the bank with one of these insurance offers. I look at the figures and always calculate that is is not a good investment. Individuals setting up as agents are even worse as they are usually selling products about which they have little knowledge apart from the amount of commission they are going to make. It's also common for them to sell minor policies such as a cheap personal accident policy just to make something, the buyer believing they have got a superior product than they actually have.

The biggest problem is the complete absence of qualifications for these agents and total lack of control over them by either the insurance companies themselves or any Government act. Anyone can set up as an agent without a single day's formal training.

Agents need better regulation and better training. The industry needs a few mis-selling lawsuits filed against it.

As i have said before a moraly bankrupt country. Practicing so called buddhist tenents!

All these insurance, loan, deposit and mortgage packages sold by the banks are made so complicated that they are impossible to understand even for educated people. Therefore it usually ends up with the customer asking the agent what he thinks the customer should do. The agent is on commission, so he suggests the customer buys it all, signs a pile of papers the customer does not understand, and tells the customer that in a few months he will send the policy, receipts etc, which the customer also does not understand.

If the banks made their packages a bit simpler and more transparent some people might be able to calculate for themselves if it is a good deal or not. For the villagers and farmers however, there is no chance, no matter how simple the package.

No way, this cannot be true .. especially not in Thialand

I am not sure which parties are the corrupt ones-----I would agree with the villagers, but most of them would do the same if they worked for the insurance companies

Completely true. Recent polls confirmed this. The majority of Thais approve of corruption as long as they get a piece of the pie.

The worst companies for this are the ‘Life’ companies eg AIA and Muang Thai (seen them selling Life insurance from a temporary table set up in the entrance to Big C !)

After battling them big USA insurance companies, first for Pop then Mom, then my own Son, i see how they change their attitude from when you pay for 25 years and have no claims to the loophole excuses for less or no coverage via exclusions and confusions after a valid claim, and shame on you for costing us pennies from our billions .Only people who seem to benefit from insurance is the industry people and the fast talker sales folks.!

Every time I get screwed about job or money here I am reminded "This is Thailand". I say get over it.

I used to sell life assurance in the 1980's in Australia and let me tell you that duping and conning policy holders and would be policy holders was the norm.

You were trained to sell the policies with the highest commissions regardless of benefit or negative effect on the policy holder.

Come pay out time, all the companies would duck and weave their way out of making payment and used lawyers and the court system to reduce payouts wherever possible.

So its not just Thailand that stinks in this regard. Insurance policy ripoffs are common throughout the world. I once tried to sell a 1 million dollar life insurance policy to a guy for about $600 per year. His response was... "so you want me to bet you $600 that I'm gonna die,... and you'll bet me a million bucks I dont?" Smart guy,.. he didn't buy of course!

"when his mother, Pralam Nooseng, 68,told the BACC of his death and asked the bank to claim the remaining debt from SCB Life, she was told her son's insurance application had never been approved."

and this just proves that it only takes a death certificate to sniff out these miserable lying cheating SOB's!!!

I used to sell life assurance in the 1980's in Australia and let me tell you that duping and conning policy holders and would be policy holders was the norm.

You were trained to sell the policies with the highest commissions regardless of benefit or negative effect on the policy holder.

Come pay out time, all the companies would duck and weave their way out of making payment and used lawyers and the court system to reduce payouts wherever possible.

So its not just Thailand that stinks in this regard. Insurance policy ripoffs are common throughout the world. I once tried to sell a 1 million dollar life insurance policy to a guy for about $600 per year. His response was... "so you want me to bet you $600 that I'm gonna die,... and you'll bet me a million bucks I dont?" Smart guy,.. he didn't buy of course!

So did he live for ever then?

If insurance did not deceive their customers, they would sell very little insurance.

Must be one of the most hated business in the world, always want to take your money but always try to escape paying anything out when you have trouble. If i did not have a house in the west i would never go near these basterds

Anyway, what a co-incidence, an industry which is nothing but a rort and scam in the west..is also a scam and rort here