The Employees’ Compensation and State Insurance Fund paid P1.345B worth of Employees’ Compensation (EC) benefits covering 279,324 claims to persons with work-related disability (PWRDs) and/or their beneficiaries from the private and public sector, through its administering agencies, the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) from January to December 2015.
“The State Insurance Fund (SIF) holds the contributions paid by government agencies and private employers. This fund finances the EC Program’s benefit payments for sickness, disability, medical, rehabilitation services and death benefits”, ECC Executive Director Stella Zipagan-Banawis said.
The EC benefits granted for 2015 by the SSS amounted to P1.072B for the payment of 248, 295 claims in the private sector. The benefits decreased by 2.19% from P1.096B EC benefits released in 2014. The bulk of payments are for death pension benefit claims which summed up to P835.457 million.
Other benefit payments included disability benefits which reached P110.383 million, P100.820 million for sickness benefits, P15.973 million for medical services, P7.8 million for funeral benefits and P1.224 million for rehabilitation services.
On the other hand, GSIS granted a total of P177.29M EC benefits for 31, 029 claims from the public sector, an increase by 10% compared to P160.22M benefits released in 2014.
Benefit payments included sickness benefits which amounted to P1.954 million, P10.751 million for disability benefits, P150.472 million for death pension, P12.149 million for medical services, P1.905 million for funeral benefits and P56,454 for rehabilitation services.
For CY 2014 and 2015, death and pension benefits comprised the highest share in the EC benefit payments made by the SSS and GSIS.
Overall, the P1.345B worth of EC benefits released to the PWRDs in 2015 were 12% lower than the P1.54B EC benefits granted in 2014.
“There are many factors affecting the lower number of claims including the continued intensive information dissemination of the Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) and Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHC) on the prevention of workplace accidents, diseases and the value of occupational safety and health.” Banawis added.
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