Abu Dhabi’s department of health (DoH) has clarified that Golden visa applicants not currently employed in the emirate must ensure they have valid health insurance when there.
The clarifications from Abu Dhabi’s DoH underline the importance of employers ensuring they have provided full health insurance coverage for their employees going out to work in the emirate.
The update also makes clear that those that fail to do so face having to cover the full value of medical costs they themselves or their dependents incur when in the UAE.
The update also reveals residents eligible for the Golden visa will continue to be covered by the health insurance policy provided by their employer, even after they are in receipt of their golden visa.
Golden visas cover professionals in the fields of science and knowledge; such as doctors, specialists, scientists, inventors, creative and sporting talent; as well as business, start-up and real estate investors.
Commenting on the update, employment lawyer Melanie Stancliffe, partner at Cripps Pemberton Greenish, told Health & Protection that employees will need to ensure their employer has put the health insurance in place.
“The difficulty is that if you have somebody who’s going over either temporarily, sometimes employers don’t get cover in place in time,” she said.
“Or you have a situation where they don’t get it at all thinking somebody that has gone there temporarily won’t be needing it, and then the employee pays quite a high cost because they’ll be the ones charged at point of service.
“I’ve heard of cases where people have gone to UAE, their employer hasn’t made these arrangements and they’ve had to dish out thousands to be treated and then the employee is potentially out of pocket because they’ve got to try and claim it back from the employer as an expense, which the employer can obviously decide not to pay.”