The insurance regulator in the Finance Ministry has cancelled group policies due to a lack of funds, a reality that will impact tens of thousands of Israeli citizens.

According to the Channel 10 News report, many people who have been paying premiums to insurance companies for decades now find themselves without insurance if they become invalids chas v’sholom. This refers to what is called “group policies”, people insured through one group of another such as a work union, the IDF and so-forth.

The report explains these policies are based on the fact that the younger workers in the workplace pay premiums, which cover the payments to the elderly policy holders who become disabled and require care. However, today there are far fewer young people paying for such policies and the older generation is living longer. The state regulator decided the policies are too expensive to cover and gave the order to cancel them. These policies renew automatically every three years.

As a result of the ruling, policy holders who expiration date was the end of 2013 were notified in writing from insurance companies that their disability insurance has been canceled through their respective group. They are given an option however, to continue paying privately at a rate of about 4,500 NIS monthly!

This exorbitant premium exceeds the pension or monthly salary of many elderly residents. Some people are already in a nursing home of living assisted facility and asking what will occur when they are evicted due to the cancelation of their policy. The report added that a facility can cost in excess of 10,000 NIS monthly.

State officials are signaling they are working on the problem but Finance Ministry officials add “there are no magical formulas that will result in an immediate solution”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)