By: Patrick Lim Firstly, my first thoughts centred on whether the article could have been evenly presented because the reporters have picked (by coincidence?) 2 well known personalities namely Mr Tan Kin Lian and Dr Larry Haverkamp who have been pretty unfavourable in their articulation on participating life insurance products. Therefore, on the principle of objectivity, can the entire article presented stand in terms of parity and balanced comment? Secondly, there can NEVER be an apple to apple comparison because we are comparing products operating in 2 completely different jurisdictions and that is why an IFA from Singapore must recognise that we are not licensed to even dispense any advice on life insurance products outside of Singapore. Thirdly, and this is pretty significant because our MAS implemented the risk based capital framework on January 01, 2005 but Malaysia has not formally done so. Why did i mention the risked based capital framework? Because the risk based capital framework has a significant impact on all life and composite insurers offering participating life insurance products. From the very superficial understanding that i have of the risk based capital framework, one of the key provisions require all insurers to set aside provisions in the form of reserves to cater to long term liabilities for all participating life insurance products.