As takaful (Islamic insurance) industry has been developed during a decade, insurance operators or someone who want to use the insurance which is compliant with Islamic law (Shariah) have been interested in the takaful. Furthermore, global insurance companies had already begun to study takaful and made their own takaful products in order to detain potential policyholders and extend their business. Majority of Islamic scholars assert and agree that takaful should be compliant with shariah and should be operated mainly by concept of tabarru (voluntary donation or gift) and taawun (mutual co-operation). Although takaful industry is becoming successful in some countries such as Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Dubai etc, there has been criticism of fundament of takaful among Islamic scholars. It may stem from applying illegitimate form of tabarru to takaful at present. Tabarru is literally voluntary donation which means that there is no reward for voluntary donation. In addition, genuine tabarru could be said that it is the opposite of compensatory contracts which are defined as the exchange or swapping of two counter values. In recent takaful model such as mudarabah, wakalah, hybrid model, etc, takaful operators distribute policyholder`s contribution to funds in order to invest it to a certain asset. In this case, tabarru may not be considered as pure tabarru because this contract is regarded as exchange contract and takaful policyholders have intention to take compensation. In this reason, some Islamic scholars have criticized for current takaful models. Accordingly, this paper analyzes true concept of tabarru and recent takaful models in order to examine complementary concept such as commitment to donate (iltizam bil tabarru) or gift on condition of an exchange (hiba bi shart al-iwad).