KUALA LUMPUR : Malaysia Airlines’ insurer has begun paying the families of passengers onboard Flight MH370 $50,000 each in initial compensation three months after the jet disappeared, a government official said Thursday. So far six Malaysian and one Chinese family have received the advance payment, to which all the families of the 239 passengers and crew onboard are entitled, said Malaysian deputy foreign minister Hamzah Zainudin. Talks with 40 more Chinese families are underway to ascertain they are the rightful claimants, said Hamzah, who heads a committee to support the missing passengers’ next-of-kin. The Boeing 777 inexplicably disappeared on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with no sign of wreckage found despite an extensive search off western Australia.