Health Shield Friendly Society has launched a new cash plan product, offering higher levels of cover to members.
This off-the-shelf product, know as Health Shield Select, offers five levels of cover. The most basic cover starts at just £4.77 a month per employee, but Health Shield says it expects its ‘level two’ cover to meet broker and employer demand for a more comprehensive product with enhanced benefits at a cost effective price. This includes higher contributions towards dental, optical and physiotherapy bills as well as increased payments towards other health and wellbeing benefits, be it counselling, acupuncture, osteopathy, homeopathy or sports massage.
All Select plan levels offer employees access to SkinVision — an app designed to detect early signs of skin cancer, as well as discounts on gym memberships. Members will also get mental health support access to a virtual GP and a rewards platform.
This level 2 cover costs £6.50 per employee per month, for firms with more than 10 employees and £10.49 per month for smaller organisations.
Health Shield says this new product will provide an attractive option for employers looking to offer healthcare benefits to staff amid ongoing pressures on the NHS, particularly as the cost of PMI continues to increase steeply.
It points out that more than 35 million working days are lost each year due to work-related illness and workplace injury making it important for employers to offer this kind of preventative support.
Health Shield says it has invested heavily over the last twelve months on improving digital capabilities, making onboarding and managing a cash plan more straightforward for employers and intermediaries. Employees covered on the plan will be able to access benefits and claim cash back through its single sign-on Breeze app.
Health Shield commercial director Paul Shires says: “We’ve seen a real behavioural shift that has presented a market gap to offer employers a cash plan with more options to suit their evolving needs.
“It’s no longer simply about a race to the lowest price to do the minimum required for their employees, which was the case for a long time. We are now seeing employers looking for a cash plan that works best for their workforce, and dovetails with their wellbeing strategy. The Select cash plan offers a great off-the-shelf solution with five levels of cover to choose from. If this doesn’t match their needs exactly our tailored cash plans are still available, offering employers the freedom to tailor a plan to the specific needs of their employees.”
Initial feedback from broker partners on the Select plan has been positive, with a spokesman from Clear Insurance Management commenting that this plan comes a “good price point”.
Clear Insurance Management adds: “The wellbeing benefits are great and it is a strong selling point for potential clients as a lot of new to market schemes want a low cost benefit (not just for them but for lower paid staff and their P11D) and a ‘wellbeing proposition’, which can all be encapsulated with this product.”
Health Shield has enjoyed strong growth over the past year, with the company now covering more than 500,000 individuals.