How Much Does Business Health Insurance Cost?

Which Policy Options Will Affect Your Premiums?

On top of the demographics of your workforce, the policy options you choose will also impact the cost of premiums. These policy options are laid out below.

Health Insurance Excess

An excess works similarly to that on a car insurance policy. It’s the amount employees pay upfront towards their medical treatment before the insurer pays the rest.

Adding an excess cuts premiums by reducing the overall bill for medical care the insurer receives. The higher the excess, the lower Health Insurance premiums. However, employers should always consider affordability for their staff when choosing an excess.

Adding Outpatient Cover

All medical treatment, private or NHS, is split into:

• Inpatient / day-patient care
  Inpatient treatment requires a hospital bed for at least one night, whereas day-patient treatment only needs a bed for the day. All Health Insurance policies cover this as standard.
• Outpatient cover
  All treatment / tests not needing a hospital bed. This includes diagnostic tests / scans and care such as physiotherapy. It’s an optional extra on all Health Insurance schemes.

Adding outpatient cover to a Health Insurance policy is valuable as it speeds up diagnosis of medical problems. It means staff can skip NHS waiting lists for outpatient care as well as inpatient procedures. However, adding this policy option does increase the cost of premiums.

To help mitigate this, you can decide to introduce a mid-range option known as limited outpatient cover. Instead of covering outpatient treatment in full for every employee, it places a cap on outpatient care per worker. This is often set at around £1,000 per worker per policy year.

6 Week Wait

The 6 week NHS wait add-on reduces the cost of cover.

If an employee needs inpatient treatment, the insurer examines the NHS waiting list for that treatment in your local area. If it exceeds 6 weeks, then the worker has the treatment privately at the insurer’s expense. Should the way be less than 6 weeks, the employee uses the NHS for that procedure.

This only applies to inpatient care. Your employees’ right to outpatient care under the policy is unaffected.

Hospital List

Every Health Insurance policy has a hospital list outlining which facilities around the country your staff can use.

Most insurers have several different hospital lists to choose from — which one you opt for will impact the cost of premiums.

A reduced hospital list (the least expensive option) usually only includes facilities in your local area or private rooms within NHS hospitals.

A standard hospital list will cover a good range of private hospitals across the UK. It provides your workers with more options as to where they can receive treatment. This list will not usually cover pricier private facilities, however.

A comprehensive hospital list covers most if not all private hospitals in the UK. Including some of the most renowned in the country.

Some insurers then include Central London hospitals as an additional tier, which are the best but priciest facilities in the country. This is the most expensive hospital list to opt for.

Additional Cover Options

Most providers offer optional extras that you can add to a policy to increase coverage for an additional premium. For example:

• Psychiatric cover
  With the UK losing £70 billion annually as a result of mental health issues, access to quality mental healthcare is vital. However, patients often struggle to get the treatment they need on the NHS in a timely manner. This option gives employees access to private mental healthcare / therapy sessions.
• Dental and optical cover
  While Health Insurance covers surgical procedures such as cataract and wisdom tooth removal. Policies don’t usually cover routine optical and dental care. Adding this option expands your policy to cover the cost of check-ups, fillings, new glasses etc.
• Cover for family members
  You can expand coverage to workers’ families if you prefer, something which may reduce the amount of time employees are absent while caring for ill family members. This can be at your expense or you can ask that workers pay to add their family.

Private Health Insurance Underwriting

You have three main underwriting options to choose from, each of which will impact the cost of cover. These are:

• Full medical underwriting (FMU)
  While it’s the cheapest option, it requires lots of paperwork to get it off the ground. This is because you’ll have to make a full disclosure of each worker’s medical history. An insurer will then exclude any pre-existing conditions outright from the start.
• Moratorium underwriting
  The most common option, moratorium underwriting needs far less initial administration than FMU as it doesn’t require upfront medical disclosures. Here, the insurer excludes conditions an employee has had in the 5 years up to the policy start date. However, the insurer may look to cover that condition if the employee serves 2 years on the policy without any advice, medication or treatment for it.
• Medical history disregarded (MHD)
  Larger companies have the option to choose the best medical underwriting on the market: medical history disregarded underwriting. It’s only available to groups of 20+ workers. It ignores all pre-existing conditions, regardless of when staff suffered from them, which means employees can claim for any condition eligible under the policy’s terms.

Compare Company Health Insurance Quotes & Get Expert Advice

Not everyone has time or the expertise to do all of the work involved in taking out an insurance policy for a group of people.

We work with all the UK’s leading insurers and understand all the T&Cs. We have processes in place to make setting up a new company health insurance scheme is as hassle free as possible.

Why Speak to Us?

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.

• We are award winning 🏆 independent insurance advisers who work with all the leading UK insurers
• You’ll speak to a dedicated expert from start to finish
• We are very proud of the 3640 and growing independent client reviews rating us at 4.92 / 5
• We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. You can find us on the financial services register here 🧐
• Claims support when you need it most.

If you need help setting up employee health insurance give us a call on 02074425880 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.