Insurance service providers will not pay for your medical bills if you get coronavirus, the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) has said.
This comes a day after the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a global pandemic.
“The insurers will not be able to offer medical insurance cover for the condition at this moment. The insurers have this category of exclusion properly indicated in the policy documents,” IIRA chief executive Godfrey Kiptum told a local daily.
According to AAR Insurance chief executive Nixon Shigoli, once a disease is declared a pandemic, the role of medical care provision shifts from insurers to the government.
Read: Health CS Mutahi Kagwe Confirms First Coronavirus Case In Kenya
“Insurers now have to think very quickly but I haven’t heard of anyone in the industry who has included coronavirus in their medical offerings. The truth is, we might introduce a product that caters to coronavirus but the uptake may not be as promising. Very few Kenyans are conscious enough to buy such a cover,” Shigoli told the Star.
The sentiments were echoed by Jubilee Insurance chief executive Patrick Gitonga who said that “epidemics and pandemics are not covered globally because they can be catastrophic”.
A pandemic is a disease for which people do not have immunity spreading over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population
Globally, more than 125,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in more 114 countries and over 4,600 deaths reported.
Read: How Coronavirus Symptoms Compare To Those Of Flu, Allergies And Common Cold
At least 10 countries in Africa have reported cases of coronavirus. They are Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Togo, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon and Ghana.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak, which is fast spreading across the world, a pandemic.
“WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that #COVID19 can be characterized as a pandemic,” said WHO Director- General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
According to WHO, coronavirus is a respiratory illness clinically resembling viral pneumonia and manifesting as fever, cough, and shortness of breath.
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