Got following concerns about Takaful:
1. How does it accommodate the poor who are unable to afford the premium? The example of food sharing by sahaba wouldn't bar a person from eating from the pooled food if a person didn't actually contribute to it?
2. In case of a premature death, the heirs of a person also receive the payment towards hypothetical premiums paid by the person if he were alive - doesn't it involve gharar? As similar to conventional banking a person may die very soon after taking the insurance and his heirs may get a large amount of hypothetical premiums without actually paying it?
3. Life Insurance: how can life insurance be Islamic, as nobody know how long a person would be alive? Doesn't insuring people for next 20, 30 or 40 years involves speculations and uncertainty?
4. If it is based on the concepts of mutuality and cooperation, why should a payout be based on a person's ability to pay (premium amount)? Shouldn't it be based on the need? As a rich person or family paying a high premium may actually recover from a loss even without a community support, whereas a poor person or family having very low ability to pay (low or zero premium) may need much higher support than what there payout could be based on the premium they paid?
- Takaful is supposed to support those who are not well to do. But I think the confusion is with regards to the fact that some commitment is to be shown by a person to want to be part of takaful. Some guys will choose not to be part of a good initiative but would want to benefit from the hard work of others. Also, it has to be noted that takaful does not forbid us from helping the poor and that it does not close the other doors of charity, so the Sahabah would help others through other means as well.
- What separates the two are the foundations they are built on. Takaful is based on the spirit of helping others while in conventional banking it is built on riba and this is something that is prohibited
- It does, but I am not sure who said insuring people is Islamic?
- Need comes at the end, at the beginning we need the funds to take care of these needs so the ability to pay is looked at first. But paying less does not mean the person would be barred from getting enough to solve his problems, that's what takaful is there for, to help others.
