ESIC Vs Corporate Insurance Plan

Respected Seniors,
Currently we are providing ESIC facilities to our employees. But we wants to take Corporate Insurance policy.
My question is that, if employee switch ESIC to Corporate insurance, will company face any trouble for the same???
Any rules or regulation of the government for above issues.
I'm looking for your valuable comments.

Dear Friend,
ESI Scheme is Mandatory.There are,of course, Exemption clauses in the Act but meeting the requirement of Exemption clauses is very difficult as you have to have all the benefits available at par with ESI Scheme or superior to the Scheme.The exemption granted is for one year and you have to get the exemption every year. Otherwise also ESI Scheme is one of the best Schemes in the world as no other Insurance Scheme provides so many benefits. It is worth knowing that ESI scheme has no limit in Medical Treatment whereas all other schemes have a cap/ maximum ceiling clause

Dear Mr. Dahiya,
I'm agree with that ESIC has more befits then other insurance policy.
But their are lots of formalities in ESIC (Slow processing, Less Hospitals, Bad Behavior of ESIC employees, Long Queues, Cleanness Issue).

Dear Kumarvipin,
Mr.Dahiya has rightly explained about ESIC scheme. If you even take any policy, you will not be able to get exemption from the scheme. As far as your doubts relating to poor or un-adequate services and more paper work etc. are concerned, these are also improving day by day.
Your main concern seems to be the same queue for a poor unskilled worker and also for a white collar employee which you have to adjust since there is no separate provisions.
P K Sharma

Hi Kumarvipin,

I agree with the wise comments made by Mr. Dahiya and Mr. Sharma.

Even if you take a corporate insurance policy, you cannot get exemption from ESIC, if your establishment and employees are within the ambit of the Act.

I can tell you from practical experience that we tried this out in one of the company I worked with way back in year 1998 - 2004. The company took medical insurance and applied for exemption from ESIC. The ESIC as expected rejected the application. The company contested it. The case took nearly 6 years and eventually the company had to pay the ESI dues with interest and penalty and I must say it added up to a 'huge' amount and the liability reflected in the Balance Sheet and a whole lot of effort was needed to get through the process and eventually close it. The cost and the executive time + legal time we spent on it was not worth a single penny that we spent on this whole exercise.

So, my suggestion is - avoid the path of seeking ESIC exemption in lieu of Medical Insurance policy.

In case you accept the above, you may consider one of the 2 options below:

Option 1: Continue with only ESIC for your employees.

Option 2: Continue with ESIC but in addition provide extra medical insurance. And employees can choose to use it if they find ESIC facilities not to their satisfaction.

Option 2 of course, is additional cost, but if the people are predominantly white collar and employee satisfaction and retention is a key criteria, such as in Product IT / R&D set-ups, then this additional cost should not be a major constraint in view of improved employee satisfaction or reduced attrition.

Those are my views for your consideration. Thanks.

As already explained that ESIC is age old scheme jointly administered by Central and State Governments. It has good lot of hospitals. It is running even in the nook and corner of the country to cater to the work force working in the factories and other establishments. It is not out place to mention that n number of complaints against ESIC. To put into for good functioning you must certainly put some pressure on the stake holders. Let us not undermine the scheme for a temporary dis-satisfaction.