FijiCare to pay term, life and funeral benefits for unvaccinated social welfare recipients
Government and FijiCare Insurance have agreed to pay term, life and funeral benefit to all eligible beneficiaries irrespective of insured members COVID-19 vaccination status. This is after it was discontinued for social welfare recipients who were not vaccinated.
The Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation received concerns from welfare recipients that unvaccinated, insured members were unable to claim funeral and term life benefits because of their vaccination status.
Following a meeting with the line minister, Lynda Tabuya, and the executive director of FijiCare, Avi Raju, it was agreed that FijiCare would be paying the term life and funeral benefit to all eligible beneficiaries as per policy requirements. This is irrespective of the insured members COVID-19 vaccination status.
This would apply to all claimed lodged from January 1, 2023, that is, claims lodged for insured members who have died from January 1, 2023 and onwards.
The remaining terms and conditions of the microinsurance scheme between the Fijian Government and FijiCare remains unchanged.
In its efforts to strengthen social protection schemes for the most vulnerable, the Fijian Government has, over a number of years, engaged collaboratively with Fiji Care Insurance Limited (“FijiCare”) through the provision of a micro insurance scheme that benefits all Fijian social welfare recipients.
The cover includes term life and funeral benefit, personal accident benefit and fire on dwelling benefit.
However, having secured herd immunity and considering that over two years have passed since the pandemic first spread to Fiji, it is imperative that Government reviews the policy on mandatory COVID-19 vaccination and assess its disproportionate impact on policies and provision of Government schemes and the lives of ordinary Fijians who have no access to social mobility. Both Government and FijiCare remain committed to upholding transparency and integrity and the assessment and processing of claims.
View-only access
Therefore FijiCare would provide the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation with ‘view-only’ access to its systems through which the ministry would be able to view data relating to claims payment as well as access information on the claimants.
This would invariably assist the ministry in reconciling records and providing data to its stakeholders on the efficacy of this microinsurance scheme.
Commenting on the issue, FijiCare executive director, Mr Raju said: “With high two doses of COVID-19 vaccine coverage complemented by high levels of natural immunity, we have seen evidence of lower hospitalisation rates and deaths with the recent waves of COVID.