The Employees’ Compensation Program State Insurance Fund paid P944 million worth of benefits to employees of the private sector and government who met work-related sickness, injury and death, as of September 2015, through its administering agencies, the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Employees’ Compensation Commission Executive Director Stella Zipagan-Banawis said.

The EC benefits granted for the first three quarters of 2015 by the SSS amounted to P817.97 million for the payment of 186,822 claims.The bulk of payments is for death pension benefit claims which totalled to P638.31 million. Other benefit payments included sickness benefits which reached P77.68 million, P83.067 million for disability benefits, P11.90 million for medical services, P6.17 million for funeral benefits and P851,865 for rehabilitation services.

Overall, the benefits released to the private sector employees were up by 7% from P763.823 million in the same period in 2014.

On the other hand, GSIS granted a total of P126.17 million EC benefits for 21,988 claims from public sector employees,an increase by 24%compared to the first 3 quarters of 2014.

Sickness benefits granted amounted to P1.214 million; disability benefits, P8.308 million; medical services, P9.183 million; funeral benefit claims were worth P1.511 million; and rehabilitation services worth P52,954. Claims for survivorship benefits comprised the biggest amount at P105.902 million.

“The increase in the amount of EC benefits to public and private sector workers was expected because of the series of increase of EC benefits from 2012 until 2015 and incessant promotion of the ECP among government employees, including the uniformed personnel from the Philippine National Police (PNP), Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP),” said Banawis.

Furthermore, Banawis noted that survivorship benefits comprised the highest share or 79% of the total benefits disbursement in the EC benefit payments made both by the SSS and by the GSIS.

The EC-SIF available for payment of future EC claims in both private and public sector amounts to P49.69 billion as of September 30, 2015.