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29 March 2024

Firms forcing staff to pay for health insurance will face legal action: DHA

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By Staff

Employers cannot deduct the cost incurred for the mandatory health insurance service from employees’ salaries, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) has said.

Employers who resort to such means can face legal consequences, a top DHA official was quoted as saying by Emarat Al Youm.

Dr. Haider Al Yousuf , Director of Health Funding, DHA, explained that according to the new law to be applied in stages starting from early next year, employers have no right to reduce an employee’s salary in return of the health insurance service.

Employers are legally obliged to provide health insurance services for employees, he noted.

However, employees may need to bear the cost of insurance coverage for their immediate family (spouse and children) in the health insurance programme if their employment contract doesn’t specify that the employer will pay for their family’s health insurance cover, Yousuf said.

The insurance company should register the family in the program even if the employer is not paying for it, and the family’s insurance premium in this case should be borne by the employee, he noted.

DHA urged employees to review their employment contracts to check if they are entitled for family health insurance. If the employee’s family is not covered, then the individual – as the sponsor of his family – ought to provide the service.

In such cases, he said, insurance firms will offer to provide a basic bouquet of services for each member of the sponsor’s family, with annual premiums ranging between Dh500 and Dh700. Such a package should include visits to physicians and treatment of common diseases, provided the patient bear the requisite co-payment cost.

The new law will have deadlines within which employers will have to provide health insurance service for their staff.

As per the new law, companies with more than 1,000 employees should provide mandatory health insurance to all staff before end-October 2014.

And companies that have more  than 100 employees and less than 1,000 should provide insurance before end-July 2015.

Companies with less than 100 employees should insure them before end-June 2016.

DHA has specified that domestic workers and family members of employees – who are not covered by employers – should be insured before end-June 2016.