RIYADH, 6 August 2006 — Saudi Telecom Company (STC) signed yesterday a medical insurance deal for its employees with the National Company for Cooperative Insurance (NCCI) for another three years which starts from October this year. The SR516 million agreement is considered to be the largest signed in the Middle East and will cover all STC employees and their families.
“This is by far the largest medical insurance agreement signed with a private company in the Kingdom,” said Saleh Al-Subayil, insurance manager of NCCI. According to him, the deal will provide all medical expenses for employees of STC and their families. It will also enable them to receive medical treatment in 300 hospitals and medical institutions in various parts of the Kingdom. The company will also provide an electronic service with many of these hospitals to further speed up the approval and treatment.
Saad Al-Marzougi, deputy executive director, said that he expected the medical insurance sector in the Kingdom to revive after the Kingdom announced obligatory medical guarantees for all foreign nationals. “We hope that car insurance deals and medical insurance deals will accumulate 70 percent of the Saudi insurance market in the near future,” he said.
He said that the new insurance scheme in the Kingdom would provide up to 10,000 jobs for locals in the private sector due to the increase of investment opportunities in the sector. Investments in the insurance market are expected to increase to SR15 billion in the next five years. “These new developments will increase the average spending per person on medical insurance from SR150 per year to SR750,” he added.
NCCI is one of the first giant private companies to go public in the Kingdom two years ago. The company was established in 1986 with a capital of SR500 million. It offered 70 percent of its 50 million shares for public offering. In addition to medical insurance, the company provides car insurance, aviation insurance, engineering insurance, naval insurance, and insurance to natural disasters.