Health cash plan provider Health Shield has increased its membership by 115,000 in 2018, making it the largest corporate cash plan provider in the UK, covering 332,000 employees.
Its annual results, published today, show its revenue rose 8 per cent in 2018. The cash plan provider paid 94.9 per cent of claims submitted and paid back 79.3 per cent of annual contributions to members. The cash plan provider paid 620,000 claims in 2018, of which more than 500,000 were claims for dental, physiotherapy and optical benefits.99.9 per cent of which were paid within two working days.
Health Shield chief executive Courtney Marsh says: “The cash plan market remained extremely competitive in 2018 with significant ongoing price pressure, impacted further by the IPT rise in 2017. Despite the challenging economic climate, it is encouraging to see that employers are still prioritising and investing in employee wellbeing.
“We continued to grow our business and achieved impressive year-on-year growth of 8 per cent gross premium income, making 2018 the 18th consecutive year we have increased our premium income. This is because we listen to what intermediaries, employers and employees want. We differentiate our offering by encouraging employees to take control of their own health and wellbeing, to ultimately reduce and prevent longer term illnesses.
“We believe that affordable healthcare should be as accessible to a small construction company in Burnley as a large firm of solicitors in London.
“Over recent years, we’ve been diversifying our product offerings into the wider health and wellbeing market alongside digitising our systems and processes. These changes will be consolidated into an entirely new and innovative proposition for the corporate wellbeing market later this year, leading the business – and the health cash plan market – into a new era and enabling us to continue our impressive recent growth record into the future.”
