Domestic Helper Insurance

In Hong Kong, the law states we must insure our staff according to the responsibilities laid on us by the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance and also to protect ourselves against claims of negligence in how we train and equip our staff for their work. The EC Ordinance provides no fault cover. So if you tell your helper NOT to cross the street other than at a Zebra crossing while out walking your dog, there will be no question of contributory negligence in an accident, no question about whether she was careless or not. A number of the better quality home plans such as the HSBC Global Home and also Axa Captain’s and New Settlers Home plans, all include free cover for the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance. Axa’s New Settlers includes also a small amount of general cover. Axa’s New Settlers home plan is typical of most plans in the market in that it provides a small degree of cover for many things, but little of anything substantive. For example, with just HKD30,000 in medical bills for an entire policy year, you are going to be very very fortunate if this is all you need. Recently a number of insurers have launched helper plans with cover for cancer, which had previously been excluded from cover. The trouble is that the HKD100,000 they offer will possibly last only a couple of weeks for outpatient treatment. Our advice is that you take the compulsory insurance for a legally employed local or overseas helper and even for a staff you illegally hire. Reason is that if your staff is injured in your employ, the question of your role as an employer will probably focus firstly on whether you insured your staff, rather than whether you illegally hired the staff. If your really care to give your helper access to private medical care, a genuine health, rather than helper policy is the only answer. We know of cases where a helper with suspected breast cancer has had to wait nearly 6 months to see a government specialist and a helper with life threatening cancer told she had to wait in a queue 6 weeks.