UAE’s compulsory medical insurance for all – what will insurers do on basic premiums?

UAE’s compulsory medical insurance for all – what will insurers do on basic premiums?

Dubai: With UAE planning compulsory health insurance across all emirates, citizens and residents will have more medical insurance plans to choose from. And even on what they need to pay as annual premium on their medical insurance. But this need not mean that the basic health cover will be the same across each of the emirates, insurance industry sources say. Each emirate could have the flexibility to decide what its ‘basic’ healthcare insurance premium should be, they add. “The basic plan premiums would be below the Dh1,000 bracket,” said a spokesperson at Dubai Insurance. “But a standardisation of rates in all the emirates will be quite unlikely due to differences in regulator guidelines and minimum benefits offered in the basic policy.” The date for the UAE-wide compulsory medical insurance rollout is yet to be confirmed, but insurance and healthcare industry providers are hopeful that clarity on the launch will be provided early next year itself. Currently, only Dubai and Abu Dhabi have mandatory health insurance requirements for its residents, and which need to renewed annually. For the UAE’s insurance industry, this will be one of the biggest breaks coming their way, and at a time when the need for optimal