Mutual insurer MAS has initiated an opt-in remediation process for its members who hold life and disability income policies that were renewed between 2008 and 2021.
According to the insurer, it was conducting a review of its policy processes when it discovered an error affecting life and disability income policies that were renewed between 2008 and 2021. The insurer applied a wrong inflation rate for the adjustment of the affected policies, which resulted in some members receiving a higher level of cover than intended and were charged higher premiums.
MAS said it will contact the affected members to gain consent in correcting this error, as it cannot make changes to policies without the owners’ permission. Members will have two options – either to maintain the higher level of cover and premiums or to receive a refund of the overcharged premiums.
The insurer said that the error was manual, and that it occurred after it loaded the incorrect inflation rate into its IT system. Following the discovery, MAS said that it has put measures into place to avoid a repeat of the mistake.
“We have changed the way that inflation adjustment rates are administered in our system and the annual process for updating these,” MAS said. “We have also added controls to prevent this error from occurring again.”
