The Lebanese insurance scenario amid threats of global collapse

ENAR

Judging from the numbers at the tail end of the third phase in the Lebanese lockdown and the start of the transition to a winding-down phase, the picture is flawless from the medical and from the insurance supervisory angle: Lebanon’s case count of severe COVID-19 illnesses up to the second half of April 2020 has been medically and administratively manageable. There was no need for dreaded selections by attending physicians—of who would get respiratory support on a ventilator and who would not—and, in a proxy indicator, there was no undue stress on the hotline of the Insurance Control Commission because of hospitalized persons’ complaints over exclusion clauses in their existing medical insurance policies.     And although trust in politicians is as rare as a $100 dollar bill in an ATM these days, one had absolutely no need to rely on assurances by government ministers or community leaders to believe the unfathomable: