Group Private Medical Insurance

Your employees are a valuable asset - and it pays to take care of the people who take care of your business. Research shows that 168 million working days are lost to sickness absence in a single year1 at a cost to British business of over £12 billion.

Once you are sick, having to rely upon the NHS is often a hit and miss experience. The question on the lips of many employers is how do I reduce the increasing cost of sickness absence within my company?

Private Medical Insurance can be a solution providing cost-effective protection for a company’s staff, with multiple benefits. In addition to being among the highest of perceived benefits for employees, it is also tax-efficient, given that only insurance premiums—rather than treatment costs—are taxable as a benefit in kind.

It can show you genuinely care about the well being of your staff. It may increase the level of your employee’s morale and performance, reduce the liability and risk of litigation and help retain existing staff along with attracting new staff

You may also find that getting staff back to work quicker because they will not be put on a NHS waiting list may also save your business time and money in the long term.

Where in general, most Private Medical Insurance plans do not cover the following: Normal pregnancy, drug abuse, infertility, GP fees, any medical prescriptions, normal dentistry, alcohol abuse, self inflicted injuries, AIDS, chronic long term illness such as diabetes or asthma, cosmetic surgery.

They can offer benefits such as accommodation and nursing in a private bed, hospital or registered nursing home while you receive treatment for illness or injury.
You may want to consider home nursing benefits, payable when the services of a qualified nurse are required for full-time nursing at home and Surgeons’ and anaesthetists’ fees for an operation, including after care.

If required you can also include Specialist physicians’ fees for treatment in a hospital or registered nursing home courses of radiotherapy or chemotherapy and Specialists’ fees for consultations, pathology and radiology investigations and physiotherapy, received on an in-patient or out-patient basis along with the expensive and ongoing cost of hospital fees for the use of its operating theatre, surgical dressings and drugs prescribed while an in-patient.

1. CBI Absence and Labour Turnover report 2005