PUTRAJAYA, June 12 ― Seven families of those aboard Flight MH370 have each received US$50,000 (RM160,500) in advance insurance payouts, Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin said today.

He said authorities were still verifying the qualified claimants among the next-of-kin of the passengers and crew aboard, after revealing that seven recipients included six Malaysian families and one from China.

“Some have already appointed their own lawyers, so we are dealing with the lawyers,” he said at a news conference after chairing a meeting of the next-of-kin committee, which deals with any and all matters related to the families of the 239 passengers and crew on board the missing plane.

Hamzah said they are in the process of finalising the payout for another 40 claimants in China, and are also in communication with lawyers engaged by families of passengers from other countries.

In explaining the delay in the payout for most of the next-of-kin, the deputy minister said claimants must be vetted individually as compensation was limited to one payment per passenger.

Hamzah assured that once that process is done, the government will see that all US$11,950,000 (RM38,359,500) allocated under Malaysia Airlines' insurance coverage will be given to the families.

But he could not say how much the final compensation amount for the families will be or when it will be issued, as they are still in the midst of looking for the missing Boeing 777.

“Whether the plane is found or we announce that it is lost, that is when we will decide on the compensation,” he said.

MH370 disappeared after leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

After two months of intensive search, the hunt was scaled back to an undersea operation in the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia that is expected to take between eight to 12 months.