The soaring cost of health insurance is crippling employers and threatening job creation and salary levels, a new study suggests.The overall cost of premiums rose from Dh9.9 billion in 2013 to Dh11.1bn in 2014, an increase of more than 12 per cent, according to the Insurance Authority.

The cost of premiums is also outstripping the cost of healthcare itself, which is estimated to have risen by about 9 per cent a year between 2008 and 2013."This is an increasingly serious concern to employers as a growing proportion of the total cost of employment," says the study, carried out by the research company YouGov for International SOS, a medical and travel security risk services company.

Emiratis say they deserve the chance to prove their worth in the private sector as companies step up efforts to bolster their local workforce. By January 1, 2023, companies with more than 50 employees must ensure 2 per cent of their staff is Emirati under a wider government drive to have UAE citizens make up 10 per cent of the private sector workforce by 2026. Companies registered in free zones are exempt from Emiratisation targets but are encouraged to hire UAE citizens. High-achieving citizens said the initiative provides an opportunity for Emiratis to move up the career ladder and demonstrate they are not being hired to simply meet a quota.

WFatima Al Qubaisi, legal counsel at a bank and a Harvard graduate, said Emiratis are “professional, capable and eager to learn”. “Emiratis do not want to be a quota or to swipe in and out. I believe that people deep down want to be an asset to their company, to contribute in order to feel fulfilled in a job,” she said.

The spate of fires, floods, and damage to property due to accidents or thunderstorms in recent months should make people be proactive and not reactionary in protecting their personal belongings at home, insurers say. Residents of the two towers in the Ajman One cluster that were damaged on Monday night fear the worst -- losing everything they own to the fire.

Many of the residents Gulf News spoke to do not have home contents insurance that would have helped them in emergencies like this.Just two weeks ago, a fire broke out in a residential building in Abu Dhabi injuring 15 people. A week before that, torrential rain flooded many communities in Jebel Ali, with two-foot flood waters damaging furniture and appliances in people's homes.