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Health insurance today is a priority in our lives. It is necessary to get covered medically with the ever-rising medical costs and the increasing health threats that prey on us. The insurance market is full of health insurance options, leading us to a state of confusion. One common question that emerges in a citizen’s mind when choosing to purchase health insurance in UAE, whether it is possible to buy more than one health insurance package to cover their medical costs?

Taking a look at the importance of health insurance in the UAE

For its citizens, the government of the United Arab Emirates has made health insurance obligatory. Employers in the area are expected to give their staff and their families health benefits. Failure to comply with this law will incur a monthly fine of AED 500. However, if the resident still has health insurance that gives extra coverage to the company’s community medical insurance, this may pose a concern. The question arises: will all insurance cards work, or will they be used interchangeably?

The approach led by Dubai Health Authority (DHA) on various health insurance plans

The number of health insurance policies used by residents is not limited. The statute only mandates that at least one health insurance package be covered for a citizen. By possessing multiple wellbeing's, no laws are broken

Besides, the DHA requires that it is okay to have two health insurance policies simultaneously. Still, a resident can only claim the coverage of anybody, making double claims unlawful. To make a point, one still has to apply the documentation individually.

This is not as easy as it seems, sadly. Insurance companies tend to pass the other insurer the responsibility for any loss. Insurers in the UAE are infamous for doing this when they know that they are no longer obligated to pay the lawsuit or commit to paying the medical costs until another insurance provider has met the responsibility. Two reasons for this are:

1. UAE laws forbid a policyholder from having more than the amount of the deficit. As such, if the health plan provided by the first insurer protects the loss and if, for personal purposes, the policyholder decides to make the allegation only against that particular insurer, then the policyholder has no other incentives to claim against the second insurer’s loss.

2. As soon as the loss is entirely paid under the first insurer’s scheme, the UAE’s rules do not grant the first insurer the right to sue other insurers who are similarly responsible for the loss to add to the lawsuit.

In several nations, the insurers’ decision to contribute has grown out of equity. It is not a right that the law acknowledges. At the same time, the ownership remains thanks to laws in many other nations. If, as in the United Arab Emirates, the law has not been drawn up, that right is not valid.

Let’s take a look at some of the dual or multiple health insurance plans

Regardless of whether or not the right to donate is lawfully available in a region, this requirement is necessary for a claim to contribute in the case of multiple insurance policies.

Multiple insurance or dual insurance occurs where one component of the insurance is covered by two or more insurance companies for the same reason and the same interest, for the same risk, and for a comparable period of time. For it to be called dual protection, each of these particular factors needs to be present.

The cases where dual insurance claims usually take place are listed below:

1. A project involving building involving the philosophy of ‘Construction All Hazards.’ In the event of physical injuries and collateral loss, this means that the contractor and the subcontractor are covered. The subcontractor typically already bears its protection against public liability. In the unlikely case that the subcontractor sustains responsibility for personal injuries, all health insurance policies will respond, barring an exclusion.

2. A motor vehicle crash that causes personal damage to the driver. Generally, in addition to the employer’s liability policy, the driver has motor car insurance, both responsible for the driver’s injuries, even where there is a clause of one of the life insurance plans claiming otherwise.

3. Health professionals employed by hospitals as private employees prefer to get their own occupational liability insurance cover in the healthcare industry. They may also come under the hospital’s occupational liability coverage that retains them. Across the UAE and the GCC, this is a general phenomenon.

Under each of the cases referred to above, where there is a loss or harm to any of the liabilities against which the insured is insured, the insured person or the insured company will be entitled, in compliance with the provisions of each policy, to recover the full amount of the loss from each of the insurance companies or insurance insurers from which they want to claim the loss.

What are some of the other clauses for insurance?

Since the UAE does not allow insurance undertakings paying for a claim to have the right of contribution from other insurance undertakings which are also equally liable for damages, the insurance undertakings working in the UAE, by the regulation wordings, deal preemptively with cases of dual health insurance schemes. With regards to dual insurance, some of the widely used contract wordings are:

Rateable Percentage Provisions: These clauses are introduced to shield the insurer from full loss lawsuits against the insured’s life insurance plans. This provision specifies that only for a rateable proportion of the claim will each insurance agent be responsible.

Notification Clauses: This provision provides that the contract will be invalid until the policyholder gives the policy agent a written warning of the presence of other health insurance policies covering the same risk.

Excess provisions: These clauses turn the life insurance plans that have them into a different insurance scheme. The coverage is only enabled if the loss reaches the other insurance limit kept by the insured.

Conclusion 

In the absence of an independent right of contribution amongst insurers under UAE regulation, insurance providers change their policy wordings pre-emptively. Therefore, it is important to closely read the contract terms and conditions when searching through UAE health insurance policies.