Employee Health Insurance
This type of insurance is taken out by an employer to get cover for the risks the employees face at the workplace, often in the form of a health savings account.
Government schemes
Government schemes draw membership from government employees and individuals not in government employment. Those in government employment pay their monthly contributions through check-off system where their contributions are deducted in advance before they receive their monthly payments. Individual private members have a to remit their monthly contributions or risk being either deregistered or the agency failing to settle any claims in the event of sickness or death.
Private Employee Health Insurance
Private companies or businesses contract insurance companies to provide their employees with insurance cover that suits their needs at the work place. Although many companies and businesses provide health insurance facilities to their employees, they are not obliged to do so. However, once they set out to provide the facility, all the laws and regulations governing such insurance come into effect.
Some types of insurance that private companies or businesses take out for their employees include;
(a) Group Health Insurance Plan: This type of insurance is a benefit plan for employees of a business organization. It can be established and managed by such an organization or through a health insurance company. The plan is meant to provide medical services either for the employees themselves or the employees and their dependants. These types of insurance are regulated by a government agency to not only ensure that they are managed well, but accountability is enforced and no discriminatory acts are practiced.
(b) Professional Liability Insurance: This type of insurance is meant to give cover to professional employees. Professionals such as doctors, lawyers, architects may make mistakes in the course of their duties. Such mistakes can cause irreparable damage or loss to an organization's client, resulting in claims involving huge amounts. This type of insurance is therefore necessary to take care of such claims.
(c) Employee retirement insurance: This is basically a pension scheme that offers an employee the opportunity to save for his/her retirement. Most governments have enacted laws to make this a mandatory in private organizations. Under the scheme, a deduction is made from the employee's monthly salary. The employer also complements this by paying the same amount of the deduction and remits the total to a government agency responsible for managing the scheme. At retirement, the employee continues to enjoy both his/her normal government pension and the amount from the other pension.
(d) Maternity Insurance: Some governments have formulated regulations to include newborns and mothers in health insurance plans. This drives up the price of the health insurance quote, but often convinces young women to sign with your company. This is an advantage to women employees who can now only leave a maternal facility after delivery upon the physician's or midwife's evaluated opinion to discharge.
(e) Workers' Compensation Insurance: This type of insurance should not be confused with Group Health Insurance. It is meant to solely cover an employee against any work-related risks such as injuries sustained in the course of duty.
If you are an employee who has an insurance cover offered by your employer, go through your policy and get to understand what is actually covered. You may wish to take up another policy that you think is of a necessity.