The coronavirus has also put an end to the famous joke about freelancers that, by the way, never made any of them laugh. This was the one in which a man asks the genie of the lamp to never let him get sick, and he was ipso facto turned into a self-employed professional. But neither the tenacity nor the capacity for hard work of the self-employed can avoid the effects of a pandemic such as COVID-19.
Particularly highly exposed
It is clear that aerosols don’t care much about people’s professional circumstances. What is certain is that when a contagion breaks out, the self-employed group is especially exposed to the drop in business, especially because their income depends on their ability to be operational every day, and because the benefits they receive from the Administration in the event of sick leave are “clearly insufficient”, in the words of the associations that represent these workers.
Supplementary benefits
For this reason, it is very important to have an alternative system in place that will allow your income to be supplemented if illness forces your business to close temporarily. Hence, sickness or health insurance for this group is increasingly common and the range of policies is constantly growing. The insurance market offers health insurance especially designed for the self-employed. Remember that this type of insurance has several options that can be combined in the same product, or which you can choose according to your needs: medical assistance, reimbursement and compensation.
COVID coverage
The emergence of the coronavirus has also influenced the design of this type of insurance. The range is very wide: from companies that offer a certain number of free tests to the insured party, to others that ensure the self-employed worker is covered if they go on to suffer an illness after being infected by COVID-19, to those that offer telephone medical follow-ups of the affected self-employed person and also offer administrative information on the grants, procedures and steps to follow to reestablish their business.
Tax benefits
It is important to know that the economic benefits that self-employed workers get from their private health insurance are perfectly compatible with those received from the public administration. What’s more, having private health insurance carries tax advantages: The Law declares as deductible the premiums paid by the taxpayer in the part corresponding to his/her own coverage and that of his/her spouse and children under 25 years of age who live with him/her. There is, however, a limit of 500 euros per year, or 1,500 euros if each of the people named has a recognized degree of disability.
