Question

Dear HR Practitioners,

Appreciate if you could share what kind of insurance coverage do you cover your staff with Employment Passes. Our employee was covered under WICA as he was holding a WP pass
than and only after a few years of working with us that we applied EP for him.

Thank you.

Christina

Reply 1

Not only WICA. The foreign worker is covered under foreign worker insurance, except EP.

You can choose not to provide foreign worker insurance for EP holder.

For my company, we do provide medical insurance for everyone.

NC

Reply 2

It is a good practice to continue to cover him with Work Injury Compensation Insurance even if he is an EP holder now. For other types of insurance, it depends on your company's benefits policy. Most of them are expected to purchase their own life and health insurance since they are drawing better salaries now. You can consider getting group insurance to cover outpatient medical expenses.

KS

Reply 3

Yes, it's a good practice to continue covering the EP holder under WICA because when a work-related injury occurs, medical leave wages is covered besides medical expenses. It's also more cost-effective because your company only requires to cover the claim up to 1 year, and within the certain range set limits. If you didn't cover him with WICA, your worker is still covered under WICA because the Act "covers any local or foreign employee who is under a contract of service or contract of apprenticeship, regardless of salary, age or nationality" (with some exceptions too though. Please refer to MOM website). So if there is a work injury case, without WICA, your employee would still be eligible to claim from your company, and if he seeks compensation via Common Law, there are no limits on the compensation amount and it could take years to close one case and you may face many more headaches esp financially.

Hence, in the long run, it's still more cost-effective to cover everyone under WICA.

Jov

Reply 4

For EP pass holders, we extend to them the same insurance coverage (medical and dental) like the rest of the employees.

AL