Koh Poh Koon rejects insurance body’s proposals for gig workers

Tapping existing private insurance products could result in unfair work injury payouts, higher business costs

- Kok Yufeng Transport Correspondent

Insurers should not be the final arbiter of work injury claim disputes as this does not ensure fairness for gig workers and the platform companies that hire them, said Senior Minister of State for Manpower Koh Poh Koon on Tuesday.

Tapping existing private insurance products to provide the same level of coverage for gig workers as employees here will also lead to higher business costs, he told Parliament, as he rejected suggestions from the General Insurance Association of Singapore (GIA) that tweaks to current solutions can offer protections on a par with the Work Injury Compensation Act (Wica).

"If it was so viable, why didn't the insurers and the platform companies suggest this earlier when there were workers who were injured (or died) while on the job?" he asked, echoing a question posed by Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong GRC) on the issue.

"Given the confidence that GIA has on the efficiency of existing products and policies... I would suggest that GIA members work closely with platform companies to offer financial protection and compensation for these workers at the level of Wica as soon as possible by the first quarter of next year, hopefully - using their existing products while maintaining the cost of premiums at parity with Wica insurance products," Dr Koh said.

"This will provide better coverage for workers in the interim and keep costs manageable for platform companies and consumers, while we work on the implementation details of Wica for this group of workers," he added.