Employers are increasingly looking for their private medical insurance (PMI) scheme to cover long term chronic conditions of employees, two insurers have agreed.
Bupa and WPA acknowledged they were increasingly hearing from businesses wanting to offer support for conditions that have not been traditionally covered by PMI schemes.
Responding to a question at the Laing Buisson Private Healthcare Summit, Bupa B2B marketing director Daniel Sullivan said: “Yes, chronic care is a live conversation. We are seeing a lot of demand from employers.
“Is it one benefit? Or is it looking at different conditions and then working out what are the dynamics of it and what are the needs of different employers? We are already starting to do some of that.”
Sullivan noted menopause support was prompting women to contact the insurer and then trigger secondary care to help manage a condition related to the menopause.
“It’s definitely something that we are focused on,” he added.
WPA executive director for large corporate business Brian Goodman agreed that chronic condition coverage “is coming into discussions with a lot of corporates now”.
He noted one employer looking at their renewal went through 33 different things not covered currently on their scheme.
“Fertility, well-man, well-women, chronic, ineligible benefits, things like that all with differing levels of cover,” he said.
“Also things like out-patient services and other benefits which have historically not been covered by healthcare schemes.
“For insurers, that’s very much in their choice [to allow it]. As long as the insurer has the systems to be able to switch it on and off and deliver it, it’s pretty straight forward,” he added.