LEADING global nonlife-insurance provider Madanes Group, market leader in insurance and reinsurance brokering Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT), and homegrown health-care industry pioneer PhilCare have combined efforts to come up with a breakthrough health plan tailored to the needs of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
“We have a lot of our countrymen outside of the Philippines who are working hard, sending money to educate their children and put food on their tables,” JLT Philippines President and CEO Raul Tan shared. “We hear all these horror stories of how their sibling, their husband or wives are hospitalized and all of a sudden their earnings are gone. This is where we step in.”
Called Bayani Family Care (BFC), the innovative insurance product is meant to ease the emergency hospitalization concerns of the OFW families.
Philip Samson, deputy CEO and head of Benefit Solutions of JLT, stressed the need to empower OFWs, who are considered heroes but find themselves in dire straits because of family needs, especially arising from medical emergencies.
“Right now in the Philippines, there is only about 4 percent of the population covered by health maintenance organization [HMO]. The need arises—a lot of people are getting hospitalized,” PhilCare President and CEO Jaeger L. Tanco shared. “58 percent of the money remittance coming here is actually for hospitalization—and it is sad because their dreams could all go down because of one simple illness.”
BFC covers scheduled and emergency room care and confinement, and scheduled hospitalization benefits for viral and bacterial illnesses and injury treatments in more than 500 PhilCare-accredited hospitals nationwide. Valid for one year, BFC offers basic life coverage for P4,350 per person. This assures scheduled and emergency hospitalization and treatments for up to P60,000. Part of its benefits include an optional unlimited outpatient medical consultations with pediatricians, cardiologists, endocrinologists and more.
Interested parties may apply for the HMO online and pay over-the-counter or via credit card. BFC requires no medical examinations, no hospital deposits, and no agents to meet and discuss. What’s more dependents only need to present the BFC e-voucher or code to a PhilCare-accredited hospital when claiming benefits.
“We want to create a product that will give OFWs peace of mind and ensure no worries over the cost of hospitalization,” Madanes Group President and CEO Ohad Madanes said. “We want to give them the kind of protection that whenever emergencies happen they have a solution.”