Half of companies not paying employers’ liability insurance

Half of companies in Cyprus are not paying compulsory employers’ liability insurance, Labour Minister Marinos Mousiouttas said.

Responding to a written question put to him by Disy MP Nikos Georgiou, he said that a total of 66,711 entities were registered as employers in Cyprus at the end of last year, and that just 35,521 have contracts to pay employers’ liability insurance.

He also pointed out that a total of 15,101 companies have their sole director as their only employee, while also specifying that a total of 30,042 employers of domestic workers are registered, and that 19,158 of those pay employers’ liability insurance.

Additionally, he said that a number of those employers which do not have contracts to pay employers’ liability insurance may fall under one of the exemptions to the regulations requiring employers to pay it.

He added that his ministry “considers it necessary to fully implement the … legislation” and that it recommends that employers “immediately comply” with it.

In response, Georgiou told business news website Stockwatch that “the numbers speak for themselves”, and that “only half of employers have complied with the provisions of the legislation, with the obvious conclusion that only 50 per cent of employees are insured in the event of an accident while performing their work”.

This is not necessarily the case, given that not all companies are the same size.

Georgiou went on to say that “my purpose … was to highlight the distortion and non-implementation of the legislation concerning mandatory employers’ liability insurance”.