Confused outlook on insurance coverage for Lebanese COVID-19 patients

ENAR

In the immediacy of the coronavirus crisis, the most pertinent insurance question for the holder of a medical policy is simple: Who will pay if I need to be hospitalized?  The answer, as with many things in Lebanon, depends. According to Nadine Habbal, acting head of Lebanon’s Insurance Control Commission, slightly more than half of Lebanon’s health insurance policyholders have coverage for coronavirus-related hospitalization costs. Their providers either have written no exclusions of pandemics into their contracts or have waved such exclusions as a service to their clients, she tells Executive. Another category consists, she says, of “companies health insurance portfolio is divided into two parts: some policies that don’t exclude pandemics and the remaining policies that exclude pandemics. (For additional information, see Q&A).    Notwithstanding that commercial insurers listed on the ICC website, by Habbal’s assurance, honor their health insurance obligations in COVID-19 cases, the picture is not automatically clear