2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami

Today, let me share one more natural disaster in Malaysia: the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. This did not happen in Malaysia but also affected Malaysia to an extent.

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, also known as the Boxing Day Tsunami was the third-largest ever recorded earthquake, the largest in the 21st century, and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between eight and ten minutes

The earthquake was caused by a rupture along the fault between the Burma Plate and the Indian Plate. A series of massive tsunami waves grew up to 30 m (100 ft) high once heading inland, after being created by the underwater seismic activity offshore.

The areas severely affected by the tsunami included Indonesia’s Aceh Province, Khao Lak in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Tamil Nadu in India. At least 200,000 people were killed and missing. This is because it coincided with the Christmas holiday period, and the number of tourists in Thailand's resorts was very large.

The tsunami also reached Malaysia, mainly in the northern states such as Kedah, Perak, and Penang, and on offshore islands such as Langkawi island. Peninsular Malaysia was shielded by the full force of the tsunami due to the protection offered by the island of Sumatra, which lies just off the western coast.

Unfortunately, in Malaysia, there were 68 casualties from the tsunami.

*(How insurance can help this?)

From an insurance standpoint, what can be mitigated is the financial impact to the family, especially for single or dual-income households providing child or parental support financially. In this scenario, life insurance would be a suitable product, and some of the policies now at AIA have 6x pay for death due to natural disasters. This means that if the person bought a RM 1 million life insurance, the claims pay-out would be RM 6 million.