Government and Fiji Care agrees to pay term life and funeral benefits, irrespective of COVID-19 vaccination status

Good news for FijiCare-insured social welfare recipients as the Government and FijiCare have agreed to pay term life and funeral benefit to all eligible beneficiaries, irrespective of their COVID-19 vaccination status.

Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Lynda Tabuya says her Ministry has received concerns from welfare recipients that unvaccinated insured members were unable to claim funeral and term life benefits because of their vaccination status.

She says following her meeting with the Executive Director of FijiCare, Avi Raju, 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.

Tabuya says this will apply to all claims lodged from the 1st of this month and onwards, but the remaining terms and conditions of the microinsurance scheme between the Government and FijiCare remain unchanged.

She adds having secured herd immunity and considering that over two years have passed since the pandemic first spread to Fiji, it is imperative that the 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.

The Minister says the Government and FijiCare remain committed to upholding transparency and integrity and the assessment and processing of claims, and, therefore, FijiCare will provide the Ministry with ‘view-only’ access to its systems through which they 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 micro-insurance scheme.

FijiCare Executive Director Avi Raju says with the high 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccine coverage complemented by high levels of natural immunity, they have seen evidence of lower hospitalisation rates and deaths with the recent waves of COVID.

He says that based on this dataset, they are pleased to support the Government’s wish to remove the Social Welfare Bundled Microinsurance policy wordings on vaccine coverage requirements.

Tabuya says the Government also acknowledges and commends FijiCare for being a valued partner in this journey.