Second medical opinion services can assist in validating medical treatment and diagnosis, supporting an enhanced likelihood of returning earlier to work, while providing employees with clinical certainty. Amazingly, in 2015, employees using the service had an 11% change in diagnosis and a 52% change in treatment and so the potential to mitigate private medical costs/medical inflation and bad claims experience (which is important in the Trust or experience rated PMI arena) is massive.
An insurer-embedded Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) charged as part of the premium is commonplace in the GIP market. To save money, organisations could cease their standalone EAP where one is provided as part of a GIP policy. Advisers need to check that all employees gain the benefit of an EAP whether they are insured or not, and that the scheme meets all the employer’s needs. Savings made by ceasing standalone EAP contracts can be used for health and wellbeing strategic programmes. Many advisers are superbly placed to consult and lead on these and they offer employers a chance to start assessing what the most effective preventative strands of sickness absence will be.
Support for areas like work/life balance, eldercare and childcare, health and wellbeing and health risk assessments all characterise a rounded service. We understand 63% of employees who used an EAP felt that without intervention they would have been absent from the workplace.
The most advanced EAP offerings also have online and telephone legal support for employers. These offer compliant documentation, legislative updates and advice on tax and health and safety issues, as well as case-by-case support for individual situations. This could reduce the costs of retained or outsourced legal services, a benefit for organisations of all sizes.
In summary, the opportunity exists to court corporate clients using Group Risk from fact finds, an advice gap opportunity, from legislative and macro environmental change, modernisation of scheme designs and maximising the value services that all insurers offer. With such a package on offer, and much work to be done, if you want to get into the corporate market then Group Risk has to be the answer to turn an employer’s head.
