Time to review your healthcare insurance policies
COVID 19 has effected many aspects of our working lives and our employee benefits packages are no different. A recent survey conducted by REBA (Reward & Employee Benefits Association) titled ‘Impact of the coronavirus crisis on pay, bonuses and employee benefits’ showed that:
1 in 4
intend to increase their spend on EAP.
1 in 11
plan to add a virtual GP service.
For those who don’t know
EAP stands for Employee Assistance Programme, provides support across your company, keeping your employees mentally healthy and productive. Most provide a counselling service where employees can speak to a therapist about any mental issues they may be suffering. They also offer financial and legal help, providing help in these uncertain times.
COVID 19 and the lockdown has only heightened mental health issues with people feeling more stressed, anxious and lonely, so offering some support in these areas are bound to help your workforce.
Virtual GP service is a relatively new product to the healthcare market place and is aimed at taking the hassle out of visiting your local GP. Employees can register for the service and then book in for either a phone or video call with a GP about any health concerns they might have. Even though we are all being told to stay indoors and only go out for health emergencies, many people are still suffering with illness, which in a normal world they would visit their local GP – so this solution is really showing it’s value in these testing times.
Where do I go to get the cover?
Ask existing providers to quote – many of the market leaders offer these types of benefits as additional bolt-ons to your existing policies, simply ask your providers to give you a quote.
EAP often comes free with an Income protection policy (although you may have varying levels of cover at additional cost)
Many of the providers have responded quickly to the COVID 19 outbreak and have offered a basic/entry-level option of these benefits free of charge for existing customers.
When renewing your policies, sometimes these bolt-ons can come free of charge if you have certain policies with certain providers – this is when it’s especially important to conduct a market review of your insurance providers annually, so that you can negotiate for these kinds of options to be put into the pot.
Many leading organisations had these 2 options as part of their existing benefits package, you may be behind the curve but you can introduce these options relatively quickly.
Some good news…
There is very little positive news which you can share with the workforce these days, so if you do introduce these benefits, that could be a useful tool in your HR arsenal that will help show your employees that their health and wellbeing is top of your agenda and we are sure they will appreciate the sentiment.