There is a direct link between people who have just taken out private medical insurance and individuals doing the right behaviours to drive improved overall wellbeing, according to Gethin Nadin, chief innovation officer at Benefex.
Speaking at Health & Protection’s second IPMI Summit at Pennyhill Park, Nadin (pictured) told delegates that data backs up the fact that newly insured employees exhibit better behaviours and manage their wellbeing better.
Nadin gave the example of dental insurance where there is a link between this cover and a reduction of cardiac arrests.
“We start to see that when we put some of these benefits in place, people start acting better,” Nadin said.
“I’m sure lots of you have seen this that some of these benefits actually make people act in a certain way.
“During the pandemic in this country loads of people didn’t go and see a GP because they felt like on a scale of ‘I really need support’ to ‘I don’t need support’, they were valuing the support other people needed so they wanted to keep the GP free for those people with serious illness.
“And what we know from the data is that actually exacerbated a lot of people’s situation.
“So having health insurance in place was getting people to make some of those right behaviours that would be more preventative.”