Corporate Medical Insurance is a highly-valued employee benefit that provides private healthcare treatment for your employees when they need it the most. In fact, it’s the insurance policy workers would most like to see their company introduce.
If an employee falls ill the corporate health plan provides them with access to private clinics, hospitals and consultants to help get them back on their feet faster.
By utilising the company paid private healthcare your employees get to bypass potentially long NHS waiting lists for certain procedures and get the required treatment faster and more efficiently.
Comprehensive Health Insurance, the option many larger corporations choose, includes both inpatient and outpatient cover. It therefore generally covers:
Most policies and private facilities will offer benefits such as:
Many of the top UK health insurers now include some really valuable additional benefits that employees and employers alike are hugely grateful for.
Most Corporate Health Insurance policies offer a digital GP service, usually via a smartphone app. This gives staff access to video and / or telephone GP appointments, usually 24 / 7, from the comfort of their own home.
Historically, you had to wait for an NHS GP referral to access private treatment. Now, however, remote GP services can make referrals for private treatment under the Health Insurance scheme if necessary.
In addition to the GP service some also provide a bolt-on prescription service as well as other everyday wellbeing benefits such as counselling helplines and high street discounts.
We helped gaming company Trailmix implement a AXA corporate scheme, click here to read how their staff are really benefiting from the Doctor@Hand service →
Without access to outpatient cover, employees will still have to wait for the NHS to be diagnosed before receiving any private inpatient treatment.
This can significantly add to waiting times for treatment. As such, many organisations consider at least some level of outpatient cover for their staff.
Nadeem Farid
Head of Employee Benefits at Drewberry
Corporate Medical Insurance treats acute conditions. These are conditions that will improve with treatment (e.g. joint pain treated by having a hip replacement).
It won’t cover chronic conditions (for example those that don’t get better with time and remain with you for life, such as diabetes). For chronic conditions, employees will continue to use the NHS.
As well as not covering chronic conditions, general exclusions you’ll find in most Private Health Insurance policies include:
The NHS does a fantastic job, but a funding squeeze has limited the amount of cash available even as demand for UK healthcare spikes. As a result, the NHS is under significant and sustained pressure.
For instance, at the end of June 2020, NHS statistics reveal 3.86 million people on NHS waiting lists in England awaiting treatment. Almost half of such patients had been waiting at least 18 weeks.
For employers, providing Corporate Healthcare as part of an impressive employee benefits package can:
Happy, grateful and above all healthy employees tend to be more productive.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that illness / injury caused 141.4 million lost UK working days in 2018. Musculoskeletal problems were a major cause of these absences. A plan could, for example, cover employees for fast therapy to relieve aches and pains.
The cost of will vary between businesses, even those of similar sizes. That’s because it’s partly based on employee demographics. Factors which impact the cost of cover include:
Below we’ve provided examples of the average cost of premiums per employee for different sized businesses. However, we’ve had to make a number of assumptions about the level of cover. For instance, we’ve assumed:
These premiums are a guideline only — the cost could be different depending on your needs and circumstances.
We are a regulated independent insurance broker with a team of expert advisers on hand to help you compare corporate health insurance quotes from all the leading UK providers.
If you need some help pop us a call on 02074425880 or email help@drewberry.co.uk
50 Employees |
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Average cost per employee per month: £35.36 | 100 Employees |
Average cost per employee per month: £28.79 | 150 Employees |
Average cost per employee per month: £21.88 |
Private Medical Insurance can be an expensive benefit to provide for all staff.
A business with a tighter budget might want to consider a Corporate Health Cash Plan, which is significantly cheaper. Rather than paying for treatment in full it provides a cash reimbursement for every day healthcare costs, for example dental check-ups, physiotherapy and eye tests.
You have a number of options when arranging Private Medical Insurance for your employees. Each will impact the overall cost of the cover.
Choose how much outpatient cover your staff receive. Your options are:
Excesses typically start at £100. The larger your excess, the more staff will have to pay towards their treatment but the cheaper premiums will be.
Every year the UK loses £70 billion as a result of mental health issues, making access to quality mental healthcare vital.
However, not all Company Health Insurance includes psychiatric cover as standard — it may be an optional add-on. Choosing it gives employees a set amount of mental health treatment per year.
Most plans cover surgical procedures such as cataract and wisdom tooth removal. However, a policy usually won’t cover routine optical and dental care, such as the cost of check-ups, fillings, new glasses etc. This option expands your Health Insurance to cover such routine care.
This option can cut the cost of premiums. It means staff can only claim if the NHS waiting list for the inpatient treatment they need exceeds 6 weeks. If not, they’ll use the NHS.
You have the option to add employees’ families. The business can pay for this or you can ask the individual worker to pay.
Including family members may be beneficial as it could reduce the amount of time employees are absent while caring for ill family members.
You have three underwriting options, plus a fourth if you’re looking to move between providers. Each is different and will determine just what staff can claim for based on their pre-existing conditions.
Premiums are usually an allowable business expense against your corporation tax bill.
However, for employees, corporate health insurance is a P11D / taxable benefit in kind.
As such, HMRC levies tax against premiums by reducing employees’ annual income tax allowance by the same amount of the premiums paid on their behalf, meaning staff can earn less before becoming subject to tax.
As an employer, you’ll need to fill out a P11D form to declare to HMRC that you’ve provided your employees with a benefit in kind and pay employer’s National Insurance on the premiums.
Yes, Corporate Health Insurance is a P11D / benefit in kind. This means there’s additional tax to pay on the employee’s part as a result of having the cover.
This is usually achieved through a HMRC adjustment to your tax code which reduces the amount you can earn before tax kicks in (this is known as your personal allowance) to the equivalent cost of the premiums each year.
Corporate Health Insurance is designed to pay for the treatment of acute medical conditions in a private hospital setting. You get to choose the facilities you’re seen in and the specialists you visit.
It’s there to pay for faster access to healthcare than the NHS can provide in many cases for problems that are treatable, such as joint pain requiring joint replacement, cancer care, a tonsillectomy, cataract removal or cardiac bypass surgery. This is opposed to chronic conditions that are only manageable, such as arthritis, asthma and diabetes, which aren’t covered.
A Corporate Health Cash Plan, on the other hand, is there to reimburse you for the cost of everyday health expenses, such as optician and dentist visits.
To use dental treatment as an example, you visit the dentist, have your treatment and pay for it. You then keep the receipt and send this off to the insurer with your completed claims form. The insurer will then reimburse you up to the limit per policy year for that type of treatment.
Most corporate schemes have the option to cover a level of overseas travel.
Some providers offer a set number of days per policy year while others have bolt on travel option which works in much the same way as a separate group travel insurance policy.
If you have a number of employees stationed overseas then it might be worth considering a group international health insurance policy.
There are four main Company Health Insurance providers:
Each insurer is different and which one is right for your company and your staff depends on your circumstances.
As an independent insurance broker we work with all the major UK health insurers when it comes to negotiating the best deal for you and your business.
Not everyone has time or the expertise to do all of the work involved in setting up a scheme for a large group of people.
So, to help you out, we work with every UK leading insurers and compare quotes from all of them. We also understand all the terms and conditions and have processes in place to make reviewing the market as hassle-free as possible.
We started Drewberry™ because we were tired of being treated like a number.
We all deserve a first class service when it comes to things as important as protecting our health and our finances. Below are just a few reasons why it makes sense to talk to us.
If you need help setting up corporate medical insurance please don’t hesitate to call us on 02074425880 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.
The staff have been very knowledgeable and I have enjoyed working with Nadeem on setting up our plan.
Or call us on 0208 432 7333
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