KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 31): All life insurance companies and takaful operators in the country will provide hospitalisation coverage/treatment for the Wuhan novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) to their policyholders/certificate holders.

This is despite a majority of the medical policies/certificates carrying an exclusion on communicable diseases requiring quarantine by law, said Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) CEO, Mark O’Dell, in a statement today.

"LIAM and the Malaysian Takaful Association are responding to an immediate need of the nation by waiving the exclusion on quarantine by law, in light of the increasing number of people who have been affected," he added.

The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of coronavirus as a global health emergency.