Here’s an interesting piece from Arab News. Insurance companies operating in Saudi Arabia are refusing to cover medical expenses related to swine flu. The companies claim that ‘epidemics’ are excluded in their policies. If that is indeed written in the policies—as are many other kinds of exclusions—then the companies are correct. Fine print is always something that needs to be read and understood. War, civil insurrection, and ‘acts of God’ are usually excluded, so it wouldn’t be unusual to find epidemics excluded either. If a policy excludes something that you think it should cover, then that’s a good reason to look for another policy.

The companies also point out that the Saudi government is already covering the expenses of swine flu treatment. That being the case, they argue, where is the justice in claiming double payment?

Insurance companies refuse swine flu cases

JEDDAH: Several insurance companies in the Kingdom have refused to cover expenses relating to treating workers affected by swine flu, saying insurance policies do not cover epidemics, earthquakes and eruption of volcanoes.

According to a report published on Friday in a local daily, private firms say that insurance companies have refused to deal with swine flu cases as it is a pandemic and has been described as such by the World Health Organization, which also raised its pandemic flu alert to Phase 6 on a six-point scale.

However, Abdul Ilah Saati, an insurance professor at King Abdulaziz University, said if the government is treating swine flu patients in both the public and private sectors, then insurance companies do not have the right to refuse treating such people.
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