Insurance : Duty of disclosure - Material non-disclosure - Plaintiff claimed against defendant for declaring policy void due to non-disclosure of material facts - Whether plaintiff owed a statutory duty to make full and frank disclosure in proposal form - Whether plaintiff breached statutory duty - Whether plaintiff's spinal surgery and hypertension history were material facts - Whether suppression of material facts done fraudulently - Insurance Act 1996, s 150(1)

This was the plaintiff's claim for, amongst others, a sum of RM200,000.00 which, he alleged was due under a policy of insurance ('the policy') he took out with the defendant. The plaintiff had applied for the policy by a proposal form ('the proposal form'). In 2014, the plaintiff underwent heart surgery and made a claim under the policy. However, in the process of assessing the plaintiff's claim, the defendant noted that the plaintiff had undergone a spinal surgery and was diagnosed with hypertension prior to the issuance of the policy. Consequently, the defendant was of the view that the proposal form contained untrue statements as the plaintiff knew and was fully aware of his spinal surgery and his hypertension history but had declared otherwise in the proposal, and decided to repudia