Article 18 of the Saudi Cooperative Health Insurance Law

This article regulates the issuance of the Implementing Regulations of the Cooperative Health Insurance Law, and specifies two matters:

• The authority competent to issue them: the Minister of Health.
• The deadline: a maximum of one year from the date the Law was issued.

It is noted that the deadline is counted from the date of the Law's issuance, not from the date of its publication or implementation.

The importance of this article appears when it is read with Article 19, which provides that the Law is published in the Official Gazette and implementation begins 90 days after the issuance of the Implementing Regulations, while the provisions relating to the establishment of the Council of Health Insurance and its powers are considered in force from the date of its publication. The date the regulations are issued therefore determines when most of the Law's provisions begin to be implemented.

The Implementing Regulations contain the details to which the Law refers in several places. This article does not state the content of the regulations, but specifies who issues them and when.

The article comes after Article 17, which provides that cooperative health insurance is applied through qualified Saudi cooperative insurance companies, operating on the cooperative insurance model in accordance with Resolution No. (51) of the Council of Senior Scholars dated 4/4/1397 AH.