You need to get work injury compensation insurance for all employees doing manual work, as well as all employees earning $2,600 or less a month.
From 1 January 2021, all WIC insurance policies must be issued by a designated insurer, and must comply with MOM’s compulsory terms. Finalise all insurance contracts and provide the information required to your insurer at least 21 days before policy commencement.
Who needs to be insured
If you are an employer, you are required to buy work injury compensation insurance for:
- All employees doing manual work, regardless of salary level.
- All employees doing non-manual work, earning a salary of $2,600 or less a month, excluding any overtime payment, bonus payment, annual wage supplement, productivity incentive payment and any allowance.
You must have insurance for both local and foreign employees. Failure to provide adequate insurance is an offence carrying a fine of up to $10,000 or jail of up to 12 months, or both.
For other employees, you have the flexibility to decide whether to buy insurance for them. However, if those employees make a valid claim, you will have to compensate them regardless of whether they are insured.
Choosing insurance coverage
When you are buying or reviewing your company’s work injury compensation insurance coverage, do the following:
- Check that you have a insurance policy covering your employees.
- Check which employees are covered.
- Review the occupations and number of employees listed on your policy. Make sure it includes the employees that you are required to cover.
- Do not under-declare the number of employees to your insurer. This will cause some of your employees to be uninsured.
- Check for exclusion clauses and recovery clauses.
- Work-related exclusion clauses are no longer allowed in insurance policies for work injury compensation (except for asbestos-related cases). This means that your insurer is liable to pay for accidents, even if the policy contains the exclusion.
- However, they can still recover the compensation from you if a recovery clause exists. If you have any doubts or questions, check with your insurer.
- Check that the insurer is a designated insurer.
- You must buy or renew your insurance policy from designated insurers.
- These policies must comply with MOM’s compulsory terms.
- This ensures that the policy coverage is adequate for WICA claims.
- Ensure all information on your policy is accurate.
- Review the occupations and number of employees listed on your policy. Make sure it includes the employees that you are required to cover.
- Do not under-declare the number of employees to your insurer. All your claims may be affected by the wrongful declaration.
- Make sure that the nature of occupation, and any other information requested by the designated insurer, is reflected accurately. Otherwise, you may not be fully covered by the insurance policy.
- Use the standard declaration form for information you will typically need to provide to the insurer.
- If you want additional coverage, you can discuss with your insurer about riders for:
- Common law liabilities
- Travelling to and from work
- Confirm your WIC policy with your insurer within the timeline given by your insurer.
- You should reply to your insurer as soon as your insurer offered a premium quote or issued the renewal notice.
- When confirm the WIC policy, provide the required information to your insurer:
- UEN
- Nature of business
- Aggregated headcount of employees
- Aggregated annual wages
- Occupation of employees
Timely confirmation of WIC coverage will help avoid gaps of coverage, especially when work injury happened before a valid WIC insurance policy started, e.g. just after old WIC insurance policy has expired.
Discontinue project WIC insurance
From 1 September 2020, you should not get new project WIC policies.
There are WIC claims that are covered under both project WIC policy and employer’s WIC policy. Such duplicate coverage can lead to delays and disputes over who should compensate the injured employee or to reimburse the employer. Companies can potentially reduce insurance premiums by avoiding duplicate coverage.
What is a project WIC policy
A project WIC policy refers to the portions of project insurance policies that provide coverage for work injury sustained at a project site, or while doing work for a specific project.
For employers
You must get WIC insurance for your employees, even if they are covered by project WIC policies.
If your employees are only covered under a project WIC policy, you may be charged for non-insurance. This is because project WIC policies do not cover some instances of work injury, such as injury that occurred in company transport or while working outside the project site.
For insurers
You can keep your existing project WIC policies. They will be considered double coverage because employers, i.e. sub-contractors, must get their own insurance. If there’s a claim, it will be made against the employer’s policy.
You should not sell new project WIC policies from 1 September 2020. Employers must buy their own WIC insurance policy.
We recommend that you work with developers to terminate the WIC portion of your existing project policies.
For main contractor and developers
You are allowed to keep your existing project WIC policies. They will be considered double coverage as employers, i.e. sub-contractors, must get their own insurance. If there’s a claim, it will be made against the employer’s policy.
You should not renew or buy new project WIC policies. Instead, you should ensure that each of your sub-contractors buy insurance to cover their own employees.
You can also buy insurance to cover common law liabilities. Such insurance is not governed under WICA.
We recommend that you work with your insurers to terminate the WIC portion of your project policies.