MHRSD: Up to SR20,000 in fine for private firms per employee if no health insurance is provided – Saudi Gazette

Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD) stressed the need to provide health insurance for all Saudi and non-Saudi employees working in the private sector and their dependents. The ministry said that up to SR20,000 in fine would be slapped on private firms per employee if they failed to make available health insurance service.

“Work is under way to establish an integrated link with the Health Insurance Council to detect cases of any employees who do not have medical insurance coverage and to deal with them electronically.

“The failure to provide health insurance for all workers in the private sector is considered as a violation on the part of the employer and penalties will be slapped on the firms violating the medical insurance regulations,” Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper reported quoting the ministry sources as saying.

According to the ministry, the erring companies and establishments with 51 or more workers shall have to pay a fine amounting to a maximum of SR20,000 for each worker who is in the category of A but did not have insurance.

The maximum fine will be SR5.000 per worker for category B in establishments with number of workers between 11 and 50; and SR2,000 per worker for category C at establishments with 10 or less workers.

The ministry said that it is monitoring violations through its field and office monitoring visits, and immediately deals with reports received through the ministry’s call center or “Together for Monitoring” application dedicated to dealing with reports and complaints related to violations of the Labor Law.

The ministry is organizing continuous campaigns, in coordination with the Health Insurance Council, to ensure that all the companies and establishments are complying with the provision of health insurance for their employees.

There are a total of 10,070,879 people registered with health insurance policies in the Kingdom. There are 6,567,734 employees, including 1,500,220 Saudis and 5,067,514 non-Saudis, 2,146,090 Saudi dependents, and 1,357,055 non-Saudi dependents.

It is noteworthy that the Health Insurance Council organized recently the “Software Connectathon” event to empower insurance stakeholders, by facilitating the linking processes on the unified national health platform Nafis.

It seeks to raise the level of quality and efficiency of services and transactions in the health insurance sector, and contribute to finding solutions to the problems faced by the insurance stakeholders.

The council is intensifying its efforts to promote digital transformation and the use of technical solutions, in accordance with its strategy, which attaches great importance to sustainability and innovation, in light of the participation of health insurance companies, service providers and linkage companies.