Perception of the Benefits and Features of Health Insurance Policies Offered by the Employers: Empirical Findings from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Government of Saudi Arabia is concerned and committed to improve the living standards of its people by enhancing, and standardizing healthcare service and education industry of the country which accounted for 36 percent of the budget in 2017, however, the spending was influenced by drop in oil revenues. The spending on healthcare services was reduced by 34% in 2016, from $42.67 billion in 2015 to $27.97 billion in 2016 (MOH, 2016). The decrease in government spending came as a strategy to increase the participation of private healthcare sector expenditure. Consequently, Ministry of Health (MOH) and Council of Cooperative Health Insurance (CCHI) have made medical insurance a must for non-Saudi residents (Expatriates) and their families. It’s the responsibility of Sponsor (Employer) to provide medical insurance to the expatriate and his/her family in Saudi Arabia. Accordingly, Health insurance in the form of Compulsory Employment-Based Health Insurance (CEBHI) was introduced in Saudi Arabia to regulate and ensure the provision of healthcare for expatriates working in the private sector, whilst providing financial protection against their healthcare expenses. It is prohibited for any employer not to participate in CEBHI, non-compliance to this law is punishable offence. However, despite these strong regulation, which comes in favor of expatriates, a number of complains been raised by expatriates of poor health care services due to employer unwillingness to provide proper health insurance policy, as a result of expensive premium. No studies have been conducted to systematically document expatriates’ perceptions in the health insurance industry. This paper attempts to fill the gap. The paper reports results about the perceptions of 324 expatriates at private sector in Saudi Arabia. The research found that most expatriates’ bout their policy from an intermediary with a weak knowledge about the insurance business, they also indicate their willingness to attend awareness lessons to educate themselves about the features of their health insurance policy. Expatriates also clarified that the policy they possess have a weak quality with limited benefits. The results indicated that there is a need to launch a measuring and controlling mechanisms, to control employer compliance with CEBHI regulations, to protect expatriates’ rights in getting proper health care service by having the right health insurance policy.