Saudi Arabia expects to add 2 mln health insurance subscribers by 2019-end

Saudi Arabia is expected to see two million new subscribers joining the health insurance system by end of 2019, Yasser Al-Maarek, spokesperson of the Council of Cooperative Health Insurance (CCHI), said in a statement. 

This will coincide with the government issuing new regulations, aimed at improving organizational performance as well as monitoring, Al-Maarek added.

The number of subscribers for Saudi Arabia’s health insurance system stood at 10.8 million, including 1.08 million Saudi nationals and 1.77 million dependents. Meanwhile, the number of expat subscribers reached 6.02 million, with 1.92 million dependents as on Dec. 10, 2018.

Saudi Arabia started implementing the new unified health insurance scheme and its annexes on the new or renewed policies as of July 1, 2018.

Non-compliant insurance entities, which will not provide the health insurance services to the insured either nationals or expats, and their related parties, will be penalized, Al-Maarek said.

“By 2019, all newly-issued, or renewed insurance policies should include the employee as well as his dependents,” he added.