INEM
New president warns that the current rate of 2.5% “no longer covers the answers we have. We will have to review this value”.
As insurance companies cover a taxa Life, Accidents, Health and Automobile. The percentage of 2,5% serves for finance or INEM.
But this value it’s not enough anymore these days, warns the president of the National Institute of Medical Emergency.
Luís Cabral says in the newspaper that insurance financing, at this moment, “no longer covers the answers we have. We will have to review this value”.
The protocol with the Portuguese Firefighters League was revised in 2025 – and this increased INEM’s annual expenditure by 30 million euros.
And increasing half a percentage point, that is, to 3%, may not even be enough.
“I don’t know if 3% will be necessary. I think that, if this effort is requested from the Portuguese, an effort must be requested that guarantees the sustainability of the system’s functioning in the long term”, analyzed Luís Cabral.
In other words, the rate can immediately rise to 3,5%, because INEM has to “safeguard the 30 million that has already been included in expenditure and next year’s increases and, therefore, I think that an increase of half a percentage point will not be enough to guarantee the sustainability of the system in the long term”.
Over the past year, insurance companies handed over to INEM insurance rates 170 million of euros – it is more than 98% of INEM’s budget.
The president of INEM also warns that there needs to be a financial injection by the Ministry of Health: “There has to be. These are services that were provided and that must be properly safeguarded.”
