Company Private Health Insurance
Company Health Insurance is offered by many employers, offering employees access to private healthcare and the opportunity to receive treatment when they need it most and at a time convenient to both them and their employer. Company Medical Insurance helps employees return to work as soon as possible after suffering ill health, reducing absenteeism and increasing productivity. It is a highly valued benefit assisting with recruitment and staff retention.
If you have 2 or more employees company health insurance is available to you. Employers who offer it usually offer benefits such as full outpatient care, full inpatient care, therapies and psychiatry. The cost of is often dictated by the location of your company, the closer to London the higher the premiums can be, there are ways to reduce the cost, a popular way is to elect for an excess. With some insurers you can save up to 15% by electing for a £100 excess, some employers have saved the discount and paid the excess for their staff, overall it usually works out saving in the long run.
As with Individual plans, small companies of less than 20-25 employees need to take note that applications for employees to join an employer’s scheme are underwritten. For this size of company insurers usually offer Full Medical Underwriting or a Moratorium, these two types of underwriting are as follows:-
- Full Medical Underwriting – this is similar to a life insurance application form, questions are asked regarding current and previous medical conditions. Usually any declared conditions are excluded from cover and treatment is usually done on the NHS.
- Moratorium – No medical questions are usually asked, you would be accepted straight away, however the moratorium is on pre-existing conditions. Any condition that existed in the 5 years before the date of your plan would be excluded from cover until you have been a member of a plan for 2 years and during that 2 years you had not suffered any symptom, sought medical advice, received any treatment or been prescribed any medication for the condition being claimed for.
If your company already has Private Medical Insurance and you want to consider looking for an alternative insurer you are able to transfer or switch the underwriting applied when you originally set up the plan or when an employee joined. This type of underwriting is as follows:-
- Switch (Technically called Continued Personal Medical Exclusions – CPME). Most insurers will accept a transfer of underwriting from another insurer, subject to a reduced number of medical questions being answered. Usually the insurer wishes to know what medical conditions have been treated – either under a medical plan or by the NHS or privately and when you last visited a consultant for a condition. This usually is required to be 1 or 2 years for personal plans. There should be no break in cover and your current certificate of insurance will be required by the new insurer.
If your Company has more than 25 Employees you can apply for Medical History Disregarded plans (MHD). These plans carry an additional charge but any medical history is disregarded and most medical conditions are covered, subject to the benefit limits of your chosen plan.
Renewal after 12 months
Plans are set up for 12 months and your chosen insurer will offer to renew the plan, premiums at renewal can be affected by a number of factors,
- Age increases – we cannot avoid this
- Reduced number of employees
- Claims made over the last year and with some insurers over 3 years
- Changes in the membership such as families or children being added.
We will send you the offer to renew from your chosen insurer, we do not automatically offer alternative quotes. We will discuss the renewal offer with you if you have concerns or wish to change the plan in any way.