Stressed Fiji workers dying young: Insurer

July 03, 2009 08:03:57 AM

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Worry and stress during these trying economic times may be sending workers in Fiji to an early grave.

In what could be a rough indication of this scenario, health care underwriter FijiCare Insurance Ltd (FIL) says it noted a spike in insurance claims for cancer and cardiac arrests early this year, and expects this to affect profits for the first six months of its 2009 financial year. 

“There have been a lot of claims in 2009, more so than other years in recent years,” said FIL managing director Peter McPherson said in a meeting with stockbrokers last week. 

“The claims spiked in March and April and now they’re on the decline again. January and February was good to us, March and April it spiked with abnormal amount of cancer claims and cardiac claims but that is now reducing.

“So that’s it. Next six months will be good, last six months not so good to be honest.”

In March and April, FIL processed eight claims. Of those, five were for cancer and two for cardiac, a stark contrast to the usual one cancer claim every three months on average. 

“I think the community is more stressed at the moment. I think it has taken two years for people’s health to decline to a degree and that’s how it appears on paper,” McPherson said.

“There’s a lot of stress in the community about jobs and cost of food for instance and education and health.

“We have a new Health Minister, Dr Neil Sharma, who is doing the best he can. He’s bought in $8 million worth of new equipments since his appointment, he’s got new doctors coming in from overseas so he’s trying to make a change and with that, I think the health conditions will improve.” 
FIL, is the only company listed on the South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPSE) with more than 10,000 shareholders, mostly ordinary workers across various industries who are also policy holders in the company.

In 2005, it had carried out a statistical analysis on the causes of deaths in Fiji based on death information of 500 policy holders going back five years. 

The study showed that two most common causes of death were cancer and cardiac problems and that people were dying relatively young.

“We had researched the actual death certificates of 500 policy holders, and the cause of deaths from the actual death certificates, and it was alarming,” McPherson told FijiLive.

“That was in 2005 – 49.2 years was the average age of death of those 500 deaths and they were working class people and scattered throughout the Fiji islands.

“The study covered workers in companies like telecom, Post Fiji, which is everywhere. A study like that is probably overdue again, because we probably have 500 deaths since 2005, and it would be interesting to see what the trend is,”

At the time, poor diet and lifestyle were observed to be major contributing factor to the early death trend.