JEDDAH: A mandatory health insurance scheme is to be applied on 1.5 million Saudis working in the private sector and their families within six months, said Dr. Abdullah Al-Sharief, secretary-general of the Cooperative Health Insurance Council.

Al-Sharief said insurance companies are ready to provide health insurance cover to Saudi employees, adding that insurance providers in the Kingdom include 25 government hospitals. “We expect 25 more public hospitals will enter the service shortly.”

Dependence of government hospitals was essential as there are no private hospitals in some areas of the Kingdom.

But Dr. Abdul Ilah Saaty, vice dean of Jeddah Community College and an insurance expert, said insurance companies would not be ready in six months to provide the service to Saudi employees. “We should give them at least one year for preparation,” he told Arab News.

“Big companies have already started providing health insurance to their Saudi workers. The new decision means application of the scheme on employees of 80 to 85 percent small and medium companies. This will be a big burden on insurance firms that are relatively new in the market,” he said.

Saaty believes the application of the scheme on 1.5 million Saudis would add more than SR2 billion to the Kingdom’s insurance market annually.

Al-Sharief said the council held a meeting last December to discuss implementation of the scheme on Saudis, in coordination with the Passport Department, the Ministry of Labor, insurance companies and the National Data Center. “Our discussions focused on the type and quality of service, cooperation of employers and a strategy to enlighten the public,” he said.

Asked whether insurance companies would increase their premiums, he said: “We have observed the premiums going down. But when the demand goes up the price will also go up. In that case, we hope the companies would provide additional services.”

He said the council licenses health care providers, which includes hospitals, polyclinics and pharmacies. The scheme has been applied on all expatriates by April.

The scheme will also be implemented on the estimated four million domestic workers in the Kingdom, a health official said, adding that an annual premium of SR500 would be levied on every housemaid or driver. Employers will be required to produce medical insurance policies to renew residence permits of their domestic workers.