Hello,

I'm doing a research about (social) insurance in Thailand, especially for a small business. Let's say you are a Director of a Thai-Company, with 51% holding (Thai-National of course). Are you forced by law to insure your employees at least with the Social Security Office (http://www.sso.go.th/wpr/home.jsp) ? What about foreign employees? Or are you able to choose a private small business insurance (especially health and accident), e.g. BUPA?

All employees must be insured, Thai and foreign. The director does not need to be insured but may choose to do so. The government insurance is very cheap. I don't know if you can replace it with a private insurance but I think very few companies would choose to as private insurance is many times more expensive.

You say that the Social Security (government) is mandatory, right?

Let's assume the employer choose the Social Security as THE insurance for his/her employees. So, the employees are free to add a private insurance, e.g. BUPA for themselves?

Yes, anybody is free to add personal insurance. It's the land of the free you know.

As Janis Jopling sang: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose ..."

lol, yes you're right

The last question is, does it work if the employer chooses a private insurance for the employees, respectively for the company to replace the Social Security? Maybe someone else know the answer ! Thanks much !

(BUPA) Business group medical insurance

Protection for your employee’s health and your company’s financial health.

Business group medical care is designed specially to suit your business needs for company at any size.

Small Business Enterprise (SBE)

Small business health insurance for companies with 5-25 employees

http://bupa.co.th/bupa_cms/en/home.aspx

As far as I understand the government social security also includes some kind of pension so I doubt you could replace it with a private health (only) insurance.

As, according to the Thailand Insurance Industry report that I read, BUPA controls about 80% of the Thai Health Insurance market, they might know.