“The plans are built around a number of key features,” said Dave Priestley, director of sales at PruHealth. “These include PruHealth’s innovations around wellness and Standard Life Healthcare’s strength of service.”
Building on core cover, which includes PruHealth’s Vitality programme, clients and their advisers can add a number of enhancements including excess levels, hospital lists and underwriting options to tailor a plan to their requirements.
Business clients will also be able to add a personal health fund to their plan. This gives employees access to a pot of money that can be spent on day-to-day cash plan style healthcare such as dental, optical, health screens and physiotherapy. Schemes with 10 or more employees start off with a fund of £75 per employee, with this building up to £225 as they improve their Vitality status. “It’s not structured as a cash plan so employees can use their fund how they like, claiming back the cost of any treatment they receive. We’ll also roll forward any unused fund,” added Priestley.
As well as offering flexibility, PruHealth is also making a commitment to transparency. “When we say ‘full cover’ we mean exactly that so there won’t be any more issues with shortfalls. We’ve also developed a ‘Cover Check’ logo, which appears in our literature to highlight areas that are important, such as any limits, exclusions or choices,” he added.
The plans will be available for new business from 1st March, with quotations available from 21st January. Existing customers will start to transfer on to the new plans at renewal later this year.
Although migration details are yet to be finalised, Priestley doesn’t expect customers to see a significant change in pricing. “There’s going to be more flexibility around renewals and, unless the customer wants something different, we’ll look to match cover pretty closely. This will mean that pricing will be in line with expectations,” he explained. “We’ll keep intermediaries informed of our migration plans as they evolve.”