ABU DHABI //Companies failing to provide employees with medical insurance will receive stiff penalties, the emirate's health officials warned yesterday.
Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, the head of customer service and corporate communications at the Health Authority Abu Dhabi, said employers and sponsors were required by law to provide health insurance to employees and their family.
This includes cover for any male employee's spouse and three children below the age of 18. The law also applies to labourers at construction companies.
An employer or sponsor who does not subscribe to a health insurance scheme or does not renew a health insurance policy is subject to a minimum fine of Dh300 per employee or worker, per month.
Mr Al Kaabi was speaking at the launch of a campaign publicising the activation of Abu Dhabi's health insurance law.
The law was issued in 2005, Mr Al Kaabi said, but fines for non-compliance were not activated until last year.
"The administrative process of activating the fines started in May 2010, and at that time his highness Sheikh Khalifa passed an order to [hold] all the fines," Mr Al Kaabi said.
"We spent four months under that order and then we decided to establish a committee within the health authority to look into all appeals that are presented through customer service and the committee."
In September, the Appeal Committee for Insurance Fines was established at the health authority with the responsibility of reviewing all health insurance appeals.
Since May 2010, the committee has received 42,153 appeals.
mismail@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
Unresolved crisis
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.
Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.
The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
