Unum is entering the cash plan market with a product for organisations with at least four employees that can be employer or employee paid.
Unum UK CEO Mark Till told Health & Protection the market was “very adjacent” to its existing areas of group protection and dental plans and had been showing strong signs of growth in recent years.
The insurer designed the Health Plan 360 in consultation with employers and advisers and had soft launched it to a few advice firms to “learn all we can and get familiar with the product” but is now available to all firms, Till (pictured) added.
Till noted the product could draw interest from employers to potentially better manage their private medical insurance (PMI) costs or to attract and retain employees who were demanding more from their employer.
Benefit, screening and premiums
The plan has three main benefit levels to choose from and includes unlimited use of a remote GP, annual health assessment, cancer screening and healthcare navigator sessions as standard.
Core coverage includes dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropody and podiatry benefits along with other health and wellbeing services such as six mental health support sessions per year and three nutritionist consultations.
Optional add-ons for employers to choose include a £5,000 critical illness cover cash benefit, a dedicated private medical insurance (PMI) excess and new child cash benefit.
The plan is integrated with the insurer’s Help@hand app which will help to deliver some of the digital services and is also where claims are submitted.
Employer-funded rates for organisations with more than 100 employees begin at £4.95 per month for level one and rise to £24.55 for level three.
Rates for firms with 20 to 99 or 4 to 19 employees are between 30p and £4.15 more expensive depending on the size of organisation and level of cover.
Employees can pay to increase the level of cover or add their partner but these are at higher cost than for employers to pay.
Voluntary employee-paid schemes are available for currently insured switch business only for firms of at least 150 staff, with cover costing £11:05, £22:35 or £44:95 per month respectively.
“We have a series of additional ideas that we’ll share later, but they will show how we can take these products even further forward,” Till said.
“That’s one of the advantages of being a new entrant to a market is you come with a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of new ideas, and you’re not constrained by the thinking that’s gone before.”
Physio, PMI excess and navigators
Two options are available for the combined physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic and acupuncture core benefit of a cash sum or up to six sessions booked through the app with Unum approved practitioners which do not require pre-payment or claiming back.
The consultations and diagnostics benefit can be used for a range of appointments, tests and scans or to cover a PMI excess if the dedicated option has not been purchased.
The two sessions with healthcare navigators per year can include second medical opinions.
The Healthcare Navigator service is a combination of digital interface and human support which can help guide people to the right elements of the plan.
“Those people can help and advise on which parts of the product someone wants to use, for example they have this condition, which path is best, is it better to talk to a GP or physiotherapist or such. They are also available for a second opinion,” Till said.
“What we’re really trying to do is blend the ease and convenience of a digital service, but with the comfort reassurance that comes with talking to a human being.”
Competitive market
Till is very aware the cash plan provider market is a competitive one already, but told Health & Protection the move had been a long time coming and was into very familiar territory.
“We’ve been working at this for around two and a half years and we did a piece of strategy work before that,” he said.
“One of the things that stood out is this is very close to the markets that we were in; we felt it was something quite close to what we did already.
“It’s an increasingly attractive part of the market and cash flow is growing quite significantly and we thought we could bring something new to the party.”
Along with its group risk operation Unum has been operating dental plans since 2015 and extended this reach in 2023 when it bought renewal rights to Cigna Healthcare’s UK dental business.
As a result, the insurer has knowledge of how this market works, its rapid growth and the demands required to service large volumes of claims quickly.
“The premium income of that dental business has gone from about £15m to around £80m at the moment,” Till continued.
“That’s shown the demand for a product that at the heart of it has got dental as one of the biggest features and it’s given us a lot of experience around a higher touch product.
“What stands out is the efficiency of claims payment, because these are often lots of small payments made frequently where somebody needs the reimbursement super-fast.
“The dental model is built on exactly the same thing, we automate large parts of that and we’ve been able to do the same with the cash plan.
“We’re trying to create something that is a really super slick experience in all respects for the employee.”
Richer data
The integration of the Help@hand app is not just critical for the front-end and employee interactions but also for the insurer’s aim to give richer data back to employers.
As Till explained, organisations will be able to see all the anonymised employee usage, engagement with the service, trends in utilisation and it expects to offer deeper data in the future.
This should help them understand if they are offering the right services to keep employees healthy and that they are getting maximum value, he added.
Part of Unum’s early research found employees thought on average they would be at work four days per year more with the support of a cash plan.
Till argued that for around £60 per employee per year that payback was “ridiculously strong”.