THE NATIONAL Insurance Scheme (NIS) has issued an appeal for all its clients to visit the appropriate parish offices to update their addresses and other personal information. The call came in light of the high percentage of mail returns to the national benefit scheme.
According to Ena West, director of National Insurance in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the NIS is currently hampered by a prevalence of outdated status information.
"We have some clients who have not had their information updated since 1966 (when the NIS was formed)," Mrs. West told The Gleaner. As a result individuals, upon changing addresses or names without contacting the Scheme, have been known to experience difficulties in receiving their NIS benefits, she added, lamenting the frequency of mail returns.
In addition to reducing the instances of returned mail, which "from time to time" contain pension payments, the Ministry of Labour is also seeking to ensure that data entered on the Scheme's newly computerised records system are accurate.
"It's pretty much on stream," Mrs. West said of the modernised system at NIS offices islandwide. The Scheme wants to ensure that all the contribution and status data entered on the system are up to date, she said.
Explaining that the Scheme's computerised beneficiary application service has been available since last year, Mrs. West said that it would not be long before the system is completely computerised.
The National Insurance Scheme provides a number of benefits to contributors and their families. Some of those benefits are the basic old age, invalidity, and widows and widowers' pension.
There is also the spouse allowance, which can be paid along with old age and invalidity, as well as the sugar workers' pension and the orphan's and special child's benefits.
