Health and risk benefits: de-dupe your cover and cut costs dramatically
When companies grow rapidly by acquisition, one of the side-effects can be a duplication of employee benefits. Clearly something has to go for the sake of efficiency. But when it comes to regulated health and risk benefits, how do you choose between a proliferation of policies?
The fact is, sometimes companies don’t even try. The complexity and paperwork involved can seem like too much for an already overstretched HR team. Unfortunately, this means the business can end up with duplicate cover for their employees, and unnecessary costs.
That was certainly the case for our client Maintel. Change has been the watchword for the company recently – new acquisitions, an expanding workforce, and the need for consistent, engaging employee benefits.
We’re delighted that they chose happypeople as their employee benefits platform. They also appointed our regulated subsidiary PES Health as their intermediary for all their insured employee benefits.
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Streamlining policies and paperwork
As Maintel grew, so did their insurance packages. While this didn’t create a problem for happypeople, we felt the company could really benefit by consolidating its numerous legacy policies – and perhaps make some business savings into the bargain.
PES Health worked to absorb a number of separate insured arrangements into one contract with a single insurer. This streamlined arrangement gave Maintel the benefit of a trust scheme, but with the protection of a 100% stop loss cover.
Reducing claims costs with some clever cover rearrangements
Maintel were also concerned about increasing claims, which had led to escalating cover costs. Our health and risk employee benefits specialists worked closely with the business to understand their objectives in providing cover for employees. They were able to add a clause to the policy which allowed certain claims to be dealt with directly by the local NHS.
This made the scheme more sustainable for the business (by reducing claims costs which in turn influenced premium costs), while still providing excellent cover for employees. An additional critical illness policy available via happypeople offered even more support.
PES Health went on to amalgamate Maintel’s different health cash plans with one provider, and launched a flexible dental benefit to support employees’ overall health and wellbeing.
Great savings as a result
Medical inflation runs at a much higher rate than retail price inflation because of the cost of new procedures and medication. Despite this, the new arrangements led to impressive savings for Maintel.
In total, following our intervention, the company saw a reduction in cover costs from £338,000 to £169,000 – a saving of 50%.
‘Doing the right thing’
Having assessed the client’s needs, we ensured that we acted in the their best interests and charged a single fee for rationalising their arrangements, rather than earning significant commissions for each policy. This reflects a core company value of doing the right thing by our clients.
‘PES starts with the business problems rather than just promoting employee benefits. They did a fantastic job of demonstrating to our internal stakeholders what cost-savings could be made. PES are very customer-focused and we get a really personal service. Everyone in the team is thoughtful and responsive. I feel like an important client.’ Sarah Burton, HR Manager
About PES and happypeople
happypeople from PES is an employee benefits platform that lives up to its name. We provide employee benefits expertise, broking skills, technical know-how and outstanding customer service. Perfect for organisations with up to 1,500 employees.
Looking for complementary HR, wellbeing or financial services? We offer those too. Contact us to find out more.
PES Health Ltd is an appointed representative of Premier Choice Healthcare Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Financial Services Register number 312878.
