Profiting from Pain: WICA Insurers' Exploitation of Migrant Workers

The Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA) is meant to provide expedient redress to workers who have been injured at work. However, the process is not smooth-sailing for all. 

Recently, HOME encountered two cases where the insurer appeared to deliberately exploit the desperation of injured workers, who have had no income for many months, to accept a settlement only around half of what they would have been entitled to based on their injury. 

The workers in question are Gopi and Lun. In their cases, the insurer had already received the medical report four to six months before offering a settlement to the workers. The medical report contains the degree of permanent incapacity (PI) suffered by the worker, which in turn informs the compensation amount the worker is to receive. 

Normally, the injured worker only gets the medical report together with the Notice of Computation (NOC), which is the formal document that sets out the compensation payable to the worker. So at the time of the settlement offer, the insurer knew, but the worker did not, that the worker should get much higher compensation according to the medical report. Instead, not only did the insurers sit on the medical report for several months, they chose not to issue the NOC and instead proposed a reduced settlement which they hoped the workers would accept out of desperation. 

Gopi

Gopi was a worker who had been working in Singapore since 2003. In June 2023, after less than two months working for his latest employer, welding rods struck his eye while he was at work. As a result, Gopi lost his vision in that eye. He was in pain and had to wear dark glasses to cope with light sensitivity. 

A WICA claim was filed. For close to a year, Gopi waited in vain for a substantive development to his case. In May 2024, a medical report was sent by the hospital to the insurer, indicating that he had a PI of 50% for the impairment of vision in one eye. 

However, Gopi was not informed of this medical report by the insurer. Around late September 2024, four and a half months after receiving the medical report, the insurer made an offered Gopi of around $40,000, based on  a PI of 25% PI. In other words, the insurer unilaterally reduced the PI by half despite knowing the correct assessment, and made an offer based on this reduced PI. The insurer also knew Gopi had neither the medical report that was issued by the hospital nor knowledge of its contents; thus, he would not be able to evaluate whether the offer was fair. 

By that time, it had been 15 months since Gopi’s injury. The food provided by his employer was dismal and made him feel ill. He had no medical leave wages, no income, and did not even have the means to take transport. Even to wash his clothes, Gopi was reduced to scraping his dormitory toilet basin for soap scraps left behind. He was understandably desperate for his ordeal to be over. 

“Waiting for an outcome for my case for so long was very traumatic, physically and mentally.. At some points, I just wanted to give up and go home.” 

Gopi discussed the matter with HOME, and we informed him that he still had the option of waiting for the NOC to be issued instead of accepting the settlement offer. Gopi eventually decided to reject the offer. In early November 2024, Gopi finally received his NOC which stated his compensation amount based on the PI that was recommended in the medical report. The compensation amount was around $80,000: double what he was offered in September. 

Annexed to the NOC was the medical report. It was only at this juncture that Gopi knew that his PI was in fact 50%. The medical report was also dated 7 May: 6 months prior to the issuance of the NOC. Gopi was puzzled as to why the insurer waited so long to issue the NOC. 

After the issuance of the NOC, the insurer filed an objection. This meant that Gopi had to wait longer for his compensation to be issued, pending a re-assessment report. Finally, after almost two years since his injury, Gopi finally received his compensation of around $80,000 on 7 February 2025. 

During this entire time, Gopi was unable to work, and  faced crushing hardships to simply survive. He was also unable to provide for his family. In early January 2025, Gopi was admitted to hospital with a grave illness related to nutrition deficiency, in part due to the dismal food he had no choice but to consume during the extremely long wait for his compensation. He spent about a week in  hospital, unsure of whether he would recover to see his family again. While he was in the hospital, HOME was told that the employer refused to provide a letter of guarantee (LOG), which would have denied him his much needed treatment. HOME visited Gopi and liaised with the hospital staff to convince them to continue the treatment while we notified the authorities. Eventually, thanks to the intervention of the authorities, the employer finally issued the LOG.

Shortly before he went home, Gopi informed us:

“I waited so long for my compensation. I hope other workers do not have to go through what I did. I am now hopeful for my future plans. I would like to go home and start a business using the skills that I have.” 

Lun

Lun was a construction worker who experienced a fall from height at his workplace in January 2024. Like Gopi, a work injury claim was submitted and he began treatment at a public hospital. 

In April 2024, the hospital sent the medical report to the insurer. However, Lun was not updated about this development. Six months later, and after waiting more than 10 months for his WICA claim, on 18 October, he was offered a settlement sum of $15,000 by his insurer. 

Like Gopi, Lun wanted his ordeal to end. He was not being paid his medical leave wages and had no income. But when Lun rejected the offer, on 21 October, the insurer then issued the NOC the very next day, on 22 October. It was then uncovered that a medical report stating that Lun suffered 10% PI was completed by the hospital on 30 April, and sent to the insurer. The NOC, based on the April medical report, stated Lun’s compensation as $28,900. Yet, the insurer had attempted to offer him a lower amount of $15,000 after a long waiting period. 

Currently, Lun’s WICA case is progressing, and he hopes to receive his compensation soon.

Injured Workers Need More Protections

Injured workers with ongoing WICA cases are often in extremely desperate situations. Many workers’ medical leave wages are repeatedly delayed, short-paid or not paid at all, leaving them financially strapped and struggling to have their basic needs met. Further, the law requires employers to only pay these wages up until a year from the date of injury; yet some workers are still stuck with ongoing cases of 18 months or more, with HOME’s current longest case at 24 months. 

Such circumstances may compel workers to accept “lowball” offers, simply because they do not know how much longer they need to wait for their compensation. For some, they may wish to move on with whatever payout they can. For every worker that HOME encounters, there may be others who simply accept what is offered to them, not knowing that they are being exploited and misled. 

As we have raised before, there are conflicts of interest when insurers, who are private, profit-making entities, have almost full control over the WICA process. It is problematic that they have the power to determine the validity of claims and have free rein to decide when the NOC is issued after the medical report is released. Regulators should have better oversight over WICA insurers, given the latter’s immense power over the well-being of injured workers. HOME recommends that, at a minimum, medical reports should be sent to both the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) as well as the insurer to ensure that bad faith settlements are not offered to workers. Workers should also be notified when medical reports have been issued. There should also be statutory deadlines post the issuance of the medical report for the insurer to release the NOC to the injured worker. If the insurer fails to meet such deadlines, valid explanation and substantiation should be provided to the worker and MOM.