The Cabinet on Thursday passed the draft bill for a new law covering work-related injury insurance. In the future, there will be separate legislation dealing with labor insurance and work-related injury insurance.
Right now only people working for companies with four or more employees have labor insurance. That accounts for 9.9 million employees in Taiwan. The new draft bill stipulates that companies with four or less people will also be required to provide work-related injury insurance for their employees. A total of more than 10 million Taiwanese workers would benefit from that.
Right now Taiwan’s labor insurance takes a percentage of monthly salaries as a contribution to the insurance program, and employers are required to match that amount. Currently employees are required to pay a percentage on monthly wages up to NT$43,900 (about US$1,400). The new draft bill raises that to NT$57,800 (or about US$1,900).
Both the employer and employee are set to benefit from the new bill as work-related compensation will be raised for those who are insured. The draft bill will also require that 10 to 15 percent of the annual premiums receivable be put into the labor insurance fund for use in work-related reconstruction and work-hazard prevention.