The Ownership of Islamic Insurance (Takaful) in Malaysia

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine the demographic factors on the awareness of Islamic life insurance i.e. family takaful schemes (FTS) in Malaysia. It is found that, although Malaysia is regarded as among the countries having the fastest growth of takaful at the international level, but it is a disappointed fact that there are those who are unaware of the existence of FTS. From a total of 200 questionnaires that were distributed, 150 respondents returned the questionnaires, out of which 138 were usable (valid and completed), thereby yielding a response rate of about 69 percent. The respondents were the public servants from the selected government departments in Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, Malaysia from different gender, age groups, type of occupations, education levels and income levels as to establish a better mixture of background and increase the generalization of the result. A Chi-square test was conducted to test whether the awareness of FTS existence is related to demographical aspects. It shows that none of the factors is significantly related to awareness the FTS. It is also indicated that only one demographic factor that is income level has a significant relationship with participation of FTS. The reason for this might be based on the fact that those who earn more have higher disposable income compared to those who earn less. The findings of this study would provide some important information on demographic factors with the level of awareness on the FTS existence in the country.
Keywords: Awareness and Takaful, Demographic factor.