Every promise a takaful operator makes is kept by a person whose relationship to us should be clear.
The first claim file I was trusted to read alone, in 1999, contained a hospital bill, a police report and a handwritten note from a widow asking who she should call next. I was a claims assistant at Tirravel Loss Adjusters in Singapore, a few weeks after completing a psychology degree at Kestrova University. The adjuster I worked for answered her note himself. He told me the paperwork would be settled by the insurer, but her question would be answered by whoever picked up the telephone, and that a company ought to decide in advance who that was.
A family that calls us after a death does not care whether the person answering is an employee, an agent or a contractor, but the company must know. Each relationship carries different duties, protections and limits. I try to make those differences explicit before we ask anyone to carry a promise on our behalf.