HealthFund - How does it work for Business?
The HealthFund concept is particularly attractive to businesses who wish to provide comprehensive private healthcare benefits to key staff but in a more cost effective way than with traditional health insurance.
The main difference is that your business sets up its own HealthFund Account for all your staff and you can therefore retain precise control over how you spend your health fund. HealthFund also makes it really easy to switch your scheme from an existing insurer without the usual admin hassle.
Please have a look at the "What makes HealthFund different?" animated clip below to find out more, or click on the Word icon to download a transcript. Also scroll down and view our KEY BENEFITS which are listed for you below. This is followed by an explanation of the main decisions you will need to make when joining HealthFund.
- click image to play - - click to download -
Do you have a guide to explain how HealthFund works for employees?
Yes. We have an eGuide which gives an overview of how an employer's scheme operates to provide comprehensive benefits and support to employees. You can view the guide, save or print it by clicking on the link below.
View HealthFund Employees' Guide
The key benefits of HealthFund can be summarised under three headings:
HealthFund Insurance
· Up to 75% saving * on traditional health insurance premiums
· Unique rolling excess, which we believe is the fairest in the market, protects your health fund
· Choice of how much you contribute to your scheme member's treatment: £1,500, £3,000 or £5,000 (also known as your excess level) - more info
· Option to increase your excess to reduce premiums
· Comprehensive benefits so you know your members are well covered
· New anti-cancer drugs covered
· Use any hospital or consultant
· No claim forms to complete
· Immediate acceptance with no medical forms to fill in - more info
* Example: HealthFund’s premium for a person aged 45 with £1,500 excess is £502.95 at 1/11/09 compared with a leading competitor´s age 45 health insurance premium of £2,115.04 at 1/2/09 for Scale B hospitals (no excess) – a reduction of over 75%.
HealthFund Medical Helpline
· Members will always talk to a nurse or doctor about their medical conditions
· Service driven by the needs of the patient, not the insurer
· Help given with any condition, irrespective of whether it is covered by the insurance
· A hassle free and comprehensive service delivered by clinically qualified staff
· Arranges hospital and consultant appointments, buy treatment and support members through the entire process, so all they have to do is get well again
· Market leading ratio of clinically qualified staff to members
· Support whether your members choose the NHS or private treatment
· Mix and match NHS and private treatment
· Provides information about the NHS, including waiting lists, hospital infection rates, consultants and centres of excellence so members can make informed decisions about where and when to have their treatment
Your Business Health Fund
· No limit on how much you can set aside in your health fund - more info
· Your fund entitles your scheme members to preferential rates for all medical conditions, saving you even more money
· Earn our top rate of interest on your entire health fund with interest credited monthly
· Always your money – spend it, if you wish, on additional benefits (e.g. health screenings)
Why not get an Online quote now by clicking the button above or if you want more information go to our comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions by clicking the FAQ button?
Having seen the videos and the excellent benefits HealthFund provides, we hope you are interested in joining HealthFund. There are 3 main decisions you will need to make during the application process:
Decision 1. How much do you want to contribute to the cost of your employees’ treatment?
Decision 2. How do you want to build up your health fund?
Decision 3. Which method of Medical Underwriting do you want?
The following notes are to help guide you through each of these and explain them in more detail.
Decision 1. How much do you want to contribute to the cost of your employees’ treatment?
Like most people you will probably want to know how much it will cost and if you haven’t done this already it’s very easy. Just click on the “Online quote” button on this page above, or on the Home page, and follow the instructions. At this stage you are not committing to anything and you don’t have to enter the names of the people you want the quote to include – we just need their dates of birth.
Note: If you want to save the quote so that you can compare it against the different options available, you just need to ‘Register Now’.
When obtaining your quote you need to choose what level of contribution you wish to make towards the cost of your employees’ treatment before the insurance kicks in. This is known as the Excess.
One of the major advantages for HealthFund members is the greatly reduced cost of premiums. We achieve this through the principle of “shared risk” – this means your business contributes towards the cost of the private treatment for the employees and dependants you want to cover under your scheme, up to a pre-determined level. You choose this when setting up your scheme and the insurance pays for costs above this “Excess” level. In basic terms this means that you are prepared to pay for minor treatments - such as consultations with specialists, diagnostics and physiotherapy - or the first part of treatment costs for more serious medical conditions, such as cancer and heart conditions. This is very attractive to insurers as it pretty much guarantees their customers are genuine and will behave in a predictable and fair way and they price the risk accordingly. HealthFund business members commit to building up their business health fund bank account depending on the “Excess” level they have chosen – the choice is between £1,500, £3,000 and £5,000. Once you have chosen the Excess levels you wish to apply, press the “Get quote” button. You will then see a new page with the annual cost of the insurance premium and 3 Options to build up your business health fund. (Please note that if you click on the “Requote” button at the bottom of this page you can go back and change details, such as the Excess level, to get a different quote until you find the one that best suits your business).
Decision 2. How do you want to build up your health fund?
The good news is that the money you deposit into your business health fund account does not have to be there on day 1, you can build it up monthly, although if you wish to deposit a lump sum when you join, that’s fine. Also because not everyone will make a claim, you do not need to hold funds to cover the Excess for every member of your company scheme. Instead, we apply a formula depending on the highest Excess you choose and the number of people covered under the scheme.
The really good news is this money is always yours and you can remove it at any time you choose – after all business is unpredictable.
The reason we recommend that you keep the value of your highest chosen Excess in your business health fund is so that our medical team can buy treatment for your employees quickly if they need it. If you are building your fund up monthly and one of your members suddenly needs treatment that costs more than you have in your fund at that point in time, we will ask you to top up your fund to meet the cost, or to the level at which the insurance kicks in. Prompt payment is one of the big levers we use to negotiate the best discounts for our members, which helps us to save you money.
In deciding how you want to build your fund, you will be presented with three simple options which allow for different “contribution” patterns. Whichever option you choose, the money will accumulate interest in your own business account until it is needed by you, your employees, or their families. The three options are...
Option 1 – Monthly Contributions
This option automatically calculates the minimum monthly contribution required to build your business health fund up to your highest chosen Excess level of £1,500, £3,000 or £5,000.
Option 2 – Lump Sum
Under Option 2, an amount equal to 12 times the equivalent monthly contribution under Option 1 is immediately deposited into your business health fund account.
Option 3 – You Choose
Under this option you are choosing the mix between lump sum and monthly contributions There is a calculator shown with this option and you can enter any sum in the first box, press calculate and the second box will tell you how much you will need to deposit monthly over the next 12 months. So you can play around to see what the effect of different lump sums has on the minimum monthly payments.
A final word on contributions – for those people who like to ring-fence funds for life’s uncertainties then HealthFund is a useful technique. As you now know, the fund always remains the property of the business and can be withdrawn at any time. So, you can make extra contributions in the confidence that they will be earning interest and are available to your business should you need them for any purpose.
Decision 3. What method of Medical Underwriting do you want?
This sounds technical but is really pretty straightforward and you won’t need to decide this until you are into the application process. Most health insurance policies exclude pre-existing conditions. These are medical conditions which an employee or their dependants had before applying for cover.
Unlike some other providers of medical insurance, HealthFund offers a choice of two Medical Underwriting options for our new schemes. Moratorium and Full Medical Underwriting. Additionally for switches from an existing insurer we also offer Continued Personal Medical Exclusions (CPME).
“Moratorium Underwriting” basis and is very simple as it requires no medical form filling, it means we can accept you, your employees and their dependants as HealthFund members immediately. It works like this: Any applicant will not be covered for any pre-existing medical conditions which occurred in the 5 years immediately prior to them becoming a HealthFund member. However, if they remain treatment and symptom free for any two consecutive years after joining HealthFund, these conditions will become eligible for cover in the future under the terms of your policy. The same conditions apply to any of your employees and their family members who join your scheme. If a member needs to make a claim on their insurance policy, our nurses and doctors will review their medical history at that time and let them know if they are covered.
With “Full Medical Underwriting” (FMU) you elect this we will not be able to accept you, your employees or their dependants for cover immediately as you will all need to complete a full health questionnaire detailing your medical history. This will be reviewed by our insurance underwriters, who are likely to exclude any historical medical conditions from future cover. These conditions will show as exclusions on each member’s insurance schedule and will normally be permanent.
We are obliged, like all providers of medical insurance, to include FMU as a choice although in practice very few of our members select this method. There is no cost differential for choosing either option.
With Continued Personal Medical Exclusions (CPME) any exclusions imposed by the previous insurer on any member will continue to be excluded from cover. In all CPME cases a Moratorium underwriting basis will additionally apply to any treatments required which are directly or indirectly related to cancer, stroke or heart conditions where these were pre-existing conditions at the time of the switch. See "policy conditions" for full details.
That’s it! We hope this explanation helps you to better understand the membership process. If you need further help please see our comprehensive FAQ sections or, use the “Questions, click to chat live” button in the top right corner of each page, or click on the “Contact us” button in the menu at the top of each page and drop us an email.
We look forward to welcoming you as a HealthFund member.
