Your insurer knows your blood group. It has never once used that to help you find blood
I was holding a fresh bag of blood when my father took his last breath.
That scene came back to me today while I was doing something blood-related, and it left me thinking about takaful. About whether takaful could become a product everyone relates to, from any background, without promoting only surplus or sacrificing the operator's margin.
During my father's hospitalisation, managing blood became its own job. Calling friends, relatives, or people I barely knew. Keeping a schedule. Making sure each donor was alright afterwards. And then trying to compensate them, even though they always refused. They gave from a good heart. That does not mean they cannot be recognised.
Which is where takaful operators come in. An operator already holds information about its participants, including blood groups. And takaful is built on the idea of people helping each other. So what if an operator ran the coordination when a participant's family needs blood? Matching donors nearby, arranging timing with the hospital, checking on the donor afterwards.
My first instinct was to thank the donor with a discount on the next contribution. That is the part that does not survive contact with the evidence. WHO has held since 1975 that blood should come from unpaid volunteers, and it does not treat cash or in-kind gifts as voluntary donations. There is also research finding that paying people for a gift makes fewer of them willing to give it.
But the same guidance leaves a door open. Refreshments, small tokens and reimbursement of direct travel costs are all compatible with voluntary unpaid donation. That covers the person I keep thinking about. The student who spends money he does not really have on transport to reach the hospital, gives blood, and goes home hungry.
So the question becomes where that money sits, and I think there are two answers rather than one.
When the donor is a participant, the cost belongs with the risk fund. Blood arriving late means a longer admission and a bigger claim. Covering a donor's fare is closer to claims mitigation than to charity, which is the same reasoning that already allows loss-prevention spending to be charged to the fund.
When the donor is from outside, a student with no certificate and no plan to buy one, the risk fund is harder to justify. That is where surplus fits. A ring-fenced slice of the underwriting surplus, set aside before distribution, covering transport and a meal for anyone who turns up to donate for a participant.
People of every faith give blood expecting nothing back.
Has anyone seen an operator try it this way?
#IslamicFinance #Takaful #FinFormed #BloodDonation
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