In an effort to strengthen social protection schemes for the most vulnerable, the Fiji 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, the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation has received concerns from welfare recipients that unvaccinated insured members were unable to claim funeral and term life benefit because of their vaccination status. Following a meeting with the Honorable Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation and the Executive Director of FijiCare, it has now been agreed that FijiCare will be paying the term life and funeral benefit to all eligible beneficiaries as per policy requirements irrespective of the insured members COVID-19 vaccination status. Please note that this will apply to all claims lodged from 1st January 2023, that is, claims lodged for insured members who have deceased from 1st January 2023 and onwards. The remaining terms and conditions of the microinsurance scheme between the Fiji Government and FijiCare remains unchanged.
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 and therefore FijiCare will provide the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation with ‘view-only’ access to its systems through which the Ministry will be able to view data relating to claims payment as well as access information on the claimants which will 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. Avi Raju said, “With high 2 dose 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. Based on this dataset we are pleased to support the Fijian Government’s wish to remove the Social Welfare Bundled Microinsurance policy wordings on vaccine coverage requirements”.
The Fijian Government remains committed to evaluating its policies and programs so that it can meaningfully transform lives of ordinary Fijians. The Government also acknowledges and commends FijiCare for being a valued partner in this journey.
Hon. Lynda Tabuya
Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation.