Benenden Health has set a goal of around 10% of its members to be from corporate schemes following its decision to ‘return to its roots’ and open up to intermediaries.
Last week in a simultaneous move the health insurance provider announced it is once again opening to intermediaries and targeting the corporate market.
Services offered as part of Benenden Healthcare for Business include private medical diagnostics and treatment where there is a wait on the NHS, round the clock GP and mental health helplines, physiotherapy, cancer and mental health support, care planning and social care advice.
For the past decade Benenden Health products had only been available directly to retail consumers, though for most of its first 100 years workplace schemes were a key part of the business.
Return to its roots
“We’re returning to our roots really in that Benenden started as a healthcare provider for Post Office workers,” Andy Wiggans, chief commercial officer at Benenden Health told Health & Protection.
“We did schemes for the Post Office, the Civil Service and we have done a bit of corporate but at a much lower level. We’ve always worked with organisations and for employees, but we went direct to consumer in about 2012/13.
“Most of our corporate schemes we have done recently have tended to be smaller because we sold direct. This relaunch is really because we are now going to be selling to employee benefits consultancies and brokers.”
Work with intermediaries
It is this work with intermediaries that Wiggans described as the “real change” in the firm’s operating model.
Wiggans noted Benenden has been doing “much bigger” numbers working directly with customers and has worked with advisers if approached without formal agreements signed.
But he emphasised there was a need to work with intermediaries to be able to work with larger organisations.
He revealed Benenden has spent the last two years signing agreements with a wide range of distributors and employee benefit consultant schemes and has worked at arming advisers with the tools required to introduce its products in an effective way to potential clients.
“Now we have a very specific set of brokers,” he continued.
“We have an intermediaries’ section on our website. We have materials so that the introducers can introduce us to their clients in a more effective way. It’s really just about taking this channel seriously.”
‘Very ambitious’
According to the latest Workplace Protection and Wellbeing Report produced by Health & Protection’s sister title Corporate Adviser, there were around 134,000 employer corporate healthcare schemes in place at the end of last year. These covered in excess of four million employees.
When asked about future goals for the business, Wiggans continued: “We have 841,000 members – I have an aspiration that I’d like to get well beyond 10% of that coming from corporates.
“We’re very ambitious on the corporate side, we think there is huge opportunity for us. We offer a healthcare product that is suitable for the whole of the workforce.”
Wiggans added that corporates were a “massive untapped” market for the business.
“We think Benenden membership fills a gap for a lot of organisations who provide private medical for their senior people but there isn’t really anything for the rest of their workforce,” he continued.
“What we’ve got is a product that provides a lot of what people use private medical for such as 24/7 GPs, mental health and health lines.
“We want to grow our book. We would like to make that bigger but without getting in the way of what makes us what we are, which is a member organisation.”
Bespoke solutions and webinars
Wiggans added Benenden was happy to offer bespoke solutions such as a specific helpline for employees.
And the insurer runs wellbeing seminars for specific clients, with clinicians who work at its Kent hospital able to provide online advice on subjects including sleep, menopause and musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions.
This forms part of the firm’s work to engage more with clients digitally, with Wiggans adding the firm plans to have specific website areas where employees of specific organisations can go to get information at some point next year.