Road accident victims to get hospital treatment regardless of insurance
Victims of car accidents will be treated by hospitals automatically whether they have insurance or not, the Finance Ministry said yesterday.
Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong said the Office of the Insurance Commission (OIC) and insurance firms had launched E-Claim, an emergency payment plan to cover medical bills of the victims of road accidents regardless of their insurance coverage.
The Road Accident Victims Protection Co will settle the medical bills, said Pravej Ongartsittigul, secretary-general of the OIC. Then later the insurance company involved will collect medical expenses from those who violated traffic laws.
The service is a result of collaboration among the OIC, the Insurance Association and the Road Accident Victims Protection Co.
Rangsan Srivorasat, director-general of the Comptroller-General’s Department, said the new service would ensure that insurance companies pay claims quickly, which sometimes has not been the case.
In a related development, Pravej said the OIC expected large numbers of households to buy insurance from the state-owned natural-catastrophe fund as many will have to renew their policies as they expire in the next few months. Private firms still demand high premiums from customers who live in high-risk areas, he said.
As a result, the office needs to seek reinsurance from international insurance houses.
The state insurance fund collects premiums of only 0.5 per cent of insured value from households, 1 per cent from small or medium-sized enterprises, and 1.25 per cent from large companies.
Pravej said about 50 per cent of households with private insurance policies would come to the state fund, while 10 per cent of companies might do so.
Currently, the total insured amount is Bt600 billion, of which households represent a small fraction, he said.
Expecting new customers, the OIC will start conducting a roadshow on the disaster-insurance fund and will buy reinsurance from international firms to diversify its risk, he said.
Reinsurers may be cautious, however, as many countries have experienced natural disasters. For example, China has also bought reinsurance from international insurers, which may leave them little room to offer coverage to other government schemes, Pravej said.
However, he said he was confident that the Bt50-billion government fund supporting the scheme would exceed future claims.
