Dubai:A newly introduced insurance scheme in the UAE aims to provide financial support to families of Indian blue-collar workers in the event of natural or accidental death.The Consulate General of India in Dubai coordinated between key employers of Indian blue-collar workers and insurance providers, Nexus Insurance Brokers and Dubai National Insurance (DNI), to establish a package offering coverage of Dh35,000 for a premium as low as Dh32.On Wednesday, Satish Kumar Sivan, Consul General of India in Dubai, said, “For our labour-focused initiative, which we had started last year, we worked with Orient and Gargash Insurance to put together a package of a life insurance programme for labourers at a very nominal premium insurance policy.”It gives very critical support to the families of labourers who unfortunately pass away, covering the natural death scenarios, covering deaths which happen not just in UAE, not just when they are at work, but also wherever they are in the world; it also covers partial and full disability.”He stressed that these cover the repatriation of mortal remains, which is a critical element for the deceased labourers’ family members to have a last glimpse of the departed family member.”This covers repatriation of mortal remains anywhere in the world, partial and full disability at a nominal fee, which is Dh32. Dubai National Insurance has come to us with another proposal, which is Dh32 for a coverage of 35,000. The consulate is just the catalyst; we want our workers to benefit from it. Also, now (in this insurance cover) up to Dh12,000 is given for transporting mortal remains; earlier, it was Dh10,000.”The initiative gained momentum last year after it was observed that most companies provide insurance coverage for their employees under Health Insurance and Workers’ Compensation, which covers work-related injuries and deaths.However, there was no mandatory insurance policy for natural deaths, leaving the legal heirs or dependents of deceased employees without any compensation in such cases.Chandrasekhar, senior Executive Consultant at Nexus Insurance Brokers LLC said, “This product is designed for Indian blue-collared construction workers. It can be extended to other nationalities. It has a premium of Dh32 per annum with a cover of Dh35,000. Apart from death, we cover disabilities and also the transfer of mortal remains to India up to Dh12,000. This is a one-year premium. The premium can go up or down depending on several factors, including the claims and how the programme is running.”He added, “We want to expand this to other communities and other nationalities as well with packages like Dh50,000 cover for Dh50, Dh75,000 for Dh75, Dh100,00 for Dh100 per annum.”Meanwhile, the Indian mission is also launching a free multilingual online digital literacy programme for Indian workers.
