The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the biggest health crisis in the 21st century. Starting from the early months of 2020, the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the lives of people around the globe till date. The third wave of the pandemic is still going on, thanks to the emergence of various variants of virus. In the beginning it was a medical emergency but the restrictive measures enforced to contain the virus spread turned it into a global economic downturn, with millions of people losing their sources of livelihoods and jobs. Those on the margins of society find it difficult to pay the medical bills as the pandemic became more severe and deadlier. Many nations introduced welfare schemes for the public hit hard by the virus.

In April 2020, Nepal government unveiled Corona Insurance for the people infected with COVID-19 to cover their hospitalisation and treatment costs. The initial assumption was that the virus would not infect the larger number of people and insurance scheme would not put financial burden on the government and private companies but as the number of COVID-infected patients rose at an alarming rate, the number of people making insurance claims also shot up. In the beginning, a COVID-19 patient could claim an insurance of Rs. 100,000 but the amount was later decreased in the wake of rising number of COVID-19 cases. Many insurance claimants have been disappointed after they could not get the insurance amount in time.

Around 161,549 people had registered their insurance claims by 31 December 2021, requiring Rs. 15.32 billion to fulfil the demand. Around Rs. 3.5 billion was paid from the insurance pool created with the contribution from 19 non-life insurance companies. They had collected just Rs. 1.95 billion by selling the policies. The government has to pay Rs. 211.2 million to them from the Corona Insurance grant. The non-life insurance companies have issued about 1.758 million policies under the scheme while 958,198 policies were issued under the government insurance grant. The private insurance companies have already paid over Rs. 5 billion for Corona Insurance, which consists of additional Rs. 1.5 billion. According to the news report of this daily, those insured of Corona Insurance scheme are likely to get their claims reimbursed by end of current Fiscal Year 2021/22. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is going to make budgetary adjustment at the end of the second quarter of this fiscal for the purpose.

Two alternatives have been recommended to clear all the insurance claims. Under first alternative, the state-owned Rastriya Beema Sansthan should clear the insurance claims of government employees. Rest of the claims should be considered 100 per cent, with the government bearing half of it. The remaining half will be shared by the IB, Nepal Reinsurance Company and non-life insurance companies – with 10 per cent each by the former two and 30 per cent by the latter. Under the second option, the government should contribute 55 per cent, Nepal Reinsurance 12 per cent, insurance companies 25 per cent and Insurance Board 8 per cent. Now it is imperative for the government and private companies to find a middle ground to solve this issue in earnest as delays in paying the amount to the insured put the question mark on the capacity of state and reliability of private companies.