Employee Benefits: Bringing ED&I to PMI
It may not be obvious that the employee benefits a company offers can support their wider equality, diversity and inclusion strategy (ED&I). It’s possibly even less obvious that private medical insurance (PMI) is one of those benefits.
Before we get stuck into ‘how’, it’s important to note the financial challenges currently faced by businesses who offer this type of insurance:
- PMI healthcare claims drive premiums higher, and employers don’t tend to encourage healthier behaviours to limit future claims.
- It can be difficult to sustain offering private medical insurance (PMI) when medical inflation results in premiums rising at a higher rate than retail price inflation.
- Employers may be left with unsavoury options to combat the increases; remove benefits, reduce the level of cover, apply medical exclusions, increase excess etc
How can businesses support their ED&I strategy with their private medical benefit, whilst addressing the financial challenges outlined?
Consider an ‘MET’ over classic PMI
Amba have launched a Multi-Employer Healthcare Trust (MET) with integrated Health & Wellbeing solutions, called Lumina Health.
Lumina Health is owned by us and delivered in partnership with multi award-winning provider, Healix.
Healthcare Trusts like Lumina Health are usually only available to the very largest employers, so we have designed and built one that is available to employers covering more than 25 employees.
This means is that we can now offer our clients and prospective clients access to a trust which would typically only be available to large corporate companies.
A Private Medical benefit that supports ED&I
Lumina Health is exclusive to Amba. We are in control of who can be a part of it, and have incorporated benefits similar to conventional Private Medical Insurance.
We have also included some benefits that are not typically covered by conventional PMI including:
- Female health, including: support during the menopause, advice and guidance on all aspects of female health including contraceptive and fertility advice and treatment for female health conditions such as endometriosis
- Some cover for eligible treatment arising from long COVID
We can also offer Medical History Disregarded (MHD) for employers with a minimum of just 25 employees covered. (Check out our blog; Was PMI designed for middle aged white men?)
Free webinar recording
Was corporate health insurance designed for middle aged white men?
The power of integrated health and wellbeing
We strongly believe there is a correlation between an increase in wellbeing activity and a decrease in risk, which we hope would lead to reduced claims and greater cost stability.
Members of the Lumina Health trust may be eligible to benefit from wearables to encourage employees to take preventative, healthy action, resulting in fewer claims. The reduction in claims should support a decrease in premium cost as it lowers the risk overall.
Addressing the financial challenges
The key aim is to make employees fitter, healthier and happier, which we hope would result in lower claims and greater cost stability.
Further financial benefits come from:
- Pooling the risk across multiple employers who all share the same focus on driving positive outcomes for employees via preventative wellbeing activity
- Lumina Health being a Trust – Our hope is that by pooling clients who share a focus on preventative employee wellbeing, we may see lower claims and subsequently competitive and more sustainable costs.
Doing the right thing
We love working with like minded businesses. One of our values is ‘Do the right thing’ and we think about this every time we build a new product of proposition. None of our colleagues should lose out when it comes to healthcare; if Lumina Health can address this and potentially save a business money, what’s the reason not to?
Please contact us if you are interested in talking about Lumina Health further, or;
