Insurance

On the first of January 2006 the WAO was replace by the WIA, a new Return-to-work scheme (Wet Werk en Inkomen naar Arbeidsvermogen). And the WGA, Return-to-work scheme, this is a scheme introduced for persons not found fully and permanently disabled who are no longer able to earn more then 65 percent of the income of a persons with comparable levels of education and work experience.

Also the WIA (Work and Income act) was introduced.The new WIA consists of two statutory provisions:

• the Regulation governing income protection for individuals registered as wholly and permanently incapacitated (IVA)
• the Regulation governing the re-employment of partially incapacitated individuals (WGA).

The WIA has two aims: to promote reintegration and to protect the incomes of employees who are restricted in the work they can do due to illness or incapacity. The primary aim is to promote a return to work, i.e. to increase the long-term reintegration of employees with (temporary) health-related work restrictions.

Employers have to cover the risk of partial disability under the WGA. They can choose between private insurance companies and the public insurer (UWV) or may even carry the risk themselves.

The financial system is based on an activating system: employers with many ex-employees on disability benefits pay higher contributions than employers with fewer employees on disability benefits (experience rating). The contributions consist of two components: the basic contribution (the same for all employers) and the differentiated contribution. This latter one differs per individual business and is applicable to the first ten years of every benefit for employees of that business. Employers who have opted to carry the WGA risk themselves only pay the basic contribution. These employers have opted to carry the financial risk of disability of their employees fully themselves for the first ten years, or to take out insurance with a private insurer.

Specialised companies have introduced a contributions scan for the WGA contribution (WGA premie) The aim of the scan is to catch persons that are not entitled to receiving a disability benefit and to revoke that or to grant IVA benefit.