CEO says Malaysian insurers face uninsurable risks as compliance focus grows

He says risk management has drifted from core underwriting toward compliance functions.

Transformative Financial Services CEO, Rangam Bir, said Malaysian insurers must move beyond compliance-driven risk management toward forward-looking pricing, stronger AI governance, and cross-functional risk capabilities as climate volatility, medical inflation, and ageing demographics make historical models less reliable.

Speaking at the Asian Banking & Finance x Insurance Asia Summit 2026 in Malaysia, Bir said insurers have moved away from their core function. 

“We were risk managers, managing risk for our customers,” he said. But “the risk focus in an insurance company has moved more towards sales compliance, mis-selling, regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering and so on,"

Bir, a former CEO of AmMetLife Insurance Bhd., also said that the shift leaves insurers exposed as risks become more interconnected and harder to isolate. 

“We are at a very, very pivotal time,” he said. “What I had in mind six months ago has already changed today," Bir said.

He added that the market is moving from underwriting individual risks “to an age where systems are all interconnected,” which means underwriting, cyber, operational, liability, and financial risks increasingly overlap.

Recent catastrophe data reflects this trend. Global insured losses from natural catastrophes reached about $137b in 2024, with projections pointing toward $145b in 2025 if current trends continue. 

Losses have remained above $100b for several consecutive years. Bir’s presentation showed that, under current pricing models, 30% to 40% of today’s insured property risks could become economically uninsurable by 2032. 

He also cited more than $700b in projected annual global insured losses by 2030, alongside parametric insurance markets growing three times faster than traditional lines.

Bir said the core weakness is that insurers still rely on backwards-looking claims experience to price risks that are now changing in real time. 

“A lot of insurance products' pricing is all based on backwards-looking data, historical claims experience,” he said. “But a lot of the risks that we are facing today are real-time. Are forward-looking. They cannot be priced right."

He pointed to electric vehicles, autonomous fleets, and AI-led operating environments as examples where historical loss curves offer limited guidance.

He made the same point on life and health insurance.

“From an insurance perspective today, 60 plus, 65 plus are uninsurable risks,” Bir said, even as Asia’s population profile shifts older. 

Healthcare costs are adding to the pressure. Bir said Malaysia has seen “medical, medical inflation being at 12 to 15% over the last couple of years,” raising the question of how insurers can keep coverage affordable.

Bir said insurers need to reorganise how risk is managed across the business. 

“At the end of the day, when we take a look at the risk mandate, it is not no longer a governance issue. It’s a strategic issue,” he said.