“If we promote dissemination to help people realise the benefits of voluntary social insurance policies, especially during the pandemic, they will definitely volunteer to join the scheme,” General Director Manh said.

Despite challenges posed by the pandemic, the VSS has made efforts to support enterprises and labourers affected by COVID-19, he said.

The pandemic has caused damages and difficulties to the country’s socio-economy and the VSS is no exception, he said, adding that pandemic prevention and control are now top priority tasks. However, the prediction of possible scenarios and proposals of solutions are also important so that the sector can speed up their work and complete assigned tasks in the post-pandemic period.

He urged VSS units and localities to stand ready and prepare all possible scenarios for this period.

According to VSS, as of July 2021, there have been about 16 million people joining the social insurance scheme, accounting for 32.08 per cent of the labour force.

Among those, more than 14.7 million joined compulsory social insurance and nearly 1.2 million joined voluntary social insurance.

More than 13 million people have applied for unemployment insurance.

The health insurance has covered 87.17 per cent of the population (more than 85 million people).

Total collection revenue has reached more than VND224.5 trillion, hitting 56.18 per cent of the target.

Total insurance debt has reached over VND21.3 trillion.

Amid increasing unemployment due to business closures, unemployment insurance has supported a lot of labourers, becoming a lifesaving policy and stabilising their livelihoods.

In July alone, as many as 79,087 unemployed people received unemployment allowances across the country and 934 others were offered vocational training.

More than 8.3 million unemployed people had their medical expenses covered by health insurance with total coverage worth up to VND6.4 trillion.

The VSS has paid pension and social insurance allowances once every two months starting from July and instructed local social insurance agencies to pay COVID-19 testing fees under the social insurance scheme.

Six public services have been launched on the VSS public service portal. Five services have been integrated into the national public service portal.

More features have been updated on social security app VssID. The app has nearly 17 million users as of July 31.

Supporting labourers and businesses

The VSS has set up working teams in Hanoi and other 19 southern localities to help pandemic-hit businesses overcome difficulties.

About 375,000 employers have had the social insurance payment level reduced. The total reduction was worth about VND4.3 trillion.

The businesses can also suspend their payments into retirement and mortality funds.

Be creative to expand insurance coverage

The remaining months of 2021 are assessed to be a difficult period for insurance coverage expansion and insurance collection amid complicated COVID-19 developments.

The number of social and health insurance participants is on a declining trend.

Duong Van Hao, head of the insurance record and collection management board, said without creative solutions to address difficulties, it will be hard to reach targets and complete tasks assigned by the Government.

He said the number of new voluntary social insurance members increased slowly. The pandemic has suspended direct communication campaigns.

To reach the targets, until the end of this year, we have to hold about 66,000 online dissemination workshops across the country, he said.

A number of localities have come up with creative ideas to expand social and health insurance coverage.

Nghe An and Thai Binh provinces have switched from offline dissemination to online, which should be applied by other localities if the pandemic continues.

In the new school year, which is about to start, most schools will hold online classes so it is more difficult to disseminate insurance information to students. The VSS has asked local insurance agencies and educational facilities to promote online dissemination, Hao said.

Deputy General Director Tran Dinh Lieu said every locality must set up a steering committee in charge of taking over urgent COVID-19 prevention tasks and mapping out solutions to expand insurance coverage in the last five months of the year.

Insurance collection is predicted to face a lot of challenges, Lieu said, urging the whole sector to focus on this work.

VSS general director Tran Dinh Lieu asked VSS member agencies to promote insurance collection and aim at debt reduction in the last five months.

He also ordered the sector to take COVID-19 preventive measures, ensure benefits of insurance card holders and continue to provide aid to employers and employees./.