Companies in Saudi Arabia which fail to pay for the medical insurance of expatriate workers and their families would be denied recruitment visas, media reported .

“The regulations state that it is binding on an employer to subscribe to the insurance premium of all expatriate workers and their families. In the event of failure to do this, the employer will be forced to pay all the installments in addition to the fine for each worker,” the Arab News daily quoted Abdullah bin Ibrahim Al-Sharief, secretary-general of the Health Insurance Council, as saying.

“The employer will also be denied the right to recruit foreign workers temporarily or permanently as per the provisions of the insurance regulations,” he added.

Al-Sharief said the number of insured foreigners at 29 insurance companies had crossed 10 million.

Meanwhile, a system to link the passport department, National Information Centre and the Alam Co. for Information Security has been developed to transfer data directly between insurance companies and the related departments.

The passport department would suspend the registration of the head of an expatriate family until every dependent is insured.

Saudi Arabia is home to around 2.8 million expatriate Indians, many of whom are blue collar workers.