Mandatory insurance for OFWs pushed

To protect some one million departing Filipino workers from possible adverse economic dislocation as a result of the current global financial crisis, the heads of 14 overseas deployment groups are asking President Arroyo to issue an executive order mandating a compulsory employment liability insurance (CELI) program to be shouldered by foreign employers although premiums can be advanced by deployment agencies.

A manifesto calling for CELI was signed Thursday night by the president of 12 labor deployment groups to be presented to Vice President Noli de Castro, presidential adviser on OFWs and endorsed by the vice president to President Arroyo. The signatories expect to present the manifesto in the Global Summit on Labor Migration that begins in Manila today.

CELI is an expansion of the current insurance programs being implemented by some deployment agencies in collaboration with local insurance companies for the past four years, said Victor E.R. Fernandez Jr., president of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc.

Under the existing insurance programs offered by private labor deployers and insurance companies, benefits granted to OFWs covered are; $10,000 for survivors’ benefit (in case of natural death); accidental death benefit of $15,000; permanent total disablement benefit of $7,500; repatriation benefits of $15,000 for the bodily remains (including burial, up to the maximum reimbursements of all receipted expenses); other causes and emergency evacuation of $1,000 and subsistence allowance of $100 a monthly and legitimate monetary claims of $4,500 plus legal assistance through mediation and coverage for victims of sabotage and terroristic act as bystander.

The premium cost per contract ranges from $20 for a seven-month contract to $55 for a $25-month contract or a weighted average subsidized cost of $2.50 per OFW per month only and this is shouldered by the employer, Fernandez explained. — Rose dela Cruz