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Current Healthcare Landscape
India’s healthcare landscape is becoming a growing cause of concern amidst the rise in critical illnesses. The increase in cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory conditions poses a significant challenge to the public health system. According to various health reports and findings, listed below are some of the most alarming instances that signal the increasing burden of critical illnesses in India:
- Alarming trends in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) were observed, with cancer cases skyrocketing across the country, making India the cancer capital of the world.
- India leads in fatalities related to asthma, representing 43% of deaths across the globe.
- The number of people experiencing health issues and early death caused by high blood pressure, high BMI, and diabetes rose by 50%, from 2000 to 2021.
- India is among the major contributors to the world’s increasing burden of respiratory diseases, accounting for 15.69% of cases.
Most of these major health conditions require elaborate and expensive treatment, which can go as high as Rs. 20 lakhs. In fact, critical illnesses require a long time for recovery and restoration. Beyond the economic and social implications, India’s increasing burden of critical illness can also cause a serious dent in workplace outcomes.
Employees suffering from any of the aforementioned ailments tend to take frequent offs from work or experience a loss of morale, causing a loss of productivity in the business. To combat the rising threat of critical illnesses in India, businesses must secure their employees with an adequate corporate health insurance plan.
What is Corporate Health Insurance?
Corporate health insurance also known as a group health insurance policy is a type of group policy that is purchased by the employer, for their employees, to cover their health-related expenses.
In some cases, the dependent family members of the employees are also covered under this type of plan to access medical coverage for critical illnesses, accidents, and other health emergencies. A corporate health insurance plan is an essential part of the employee benefits package of the company as it helps in attracting and retaining top talent while also fostering employee well-being.
Key Features of Corporate Health Insurance
1. Coverage
The sum insured by the employer applies to all employees covered under the policy the same. The scope of coverage can also be extended to dependents like spouses, children, and parents.
2. Cashless Hospitalisation
The most essential feature of a corporate health insurance plan is access to cashless treatment at network hospitals. This entails that the employees can get immediate treatment without having to pay any upfront cost at the network hospital.
3. Pre-Existing Conditions
Most corporate health insurance plans include pre-existing conditions from the very beginning of the policy period. The employee can avail treatment for a pre-existing condition from day one of the policy.
4. Customisations
While purchasing the policy, the employers have the option to customise the plan in accordance with the specific needs of their employees. Some of these customisations are maternity coverage, wellness benefits, dental care, and critical illness riders.
5. Lower Premiums
Unline individual health insurance, the premiums for corporate health insurance are lower. This is mainly because the risk gets spread among the employees. The per-employee cost of corporate health insurance is mostly subject to the number of employees covered under the group policy, more employees will result in lower premium costs per employee.
6. Add-Ons & Value-Added Benefits
To make the insurance coverage more comprehensive, employers also have the option of adding various other health and wellness benefits such as – outpatient healthcare, annual health checkups, discounts on pharmacy, mental wellness services, gym memberships, and more. These benefits make the overall corporate insurance policy more attractive and cater to a more holistic approach towards employee well-being.
7. No Medical Tests
8. Tax Benefits
Under the Income Tax Act of Section 17, employers can file for tax exemptions on premiums paid towards corporate health insurance, making it an even more lucrative business expense.
Relevant Read: Section 37 of the Income Tax Act
Corporate Health Insurance: Benefits For Employers
In addition to the tax exemption, corporate group health insurance has various other benefits that can help businesses save tons in future costs and generate valuable business outcomes. Some of these benefits are as follows:
1. Improved Productivity
Employees with comprehensive medical coverage are less prone to stressors induced by personal health emergencies. When they’re not worried or fall sick often they tend to be more productive at work. Additionally, when the same medical coverage is extended to their families, they tend to feel less burdened and more dedicated to their jobs.
2. Reduced Attrition
When an employee or their family member goes through a prolonged illness, it often results in them exiting the workplace, and in turn, contributing to attrition. Given the state of the increasing burden of critical illnesses in India, it is fair to assume that at least 1 in 5 employees or their family members will experience a long-term ailment resulting in loss of work or job change.
Attrition is not good for businesses, specially the ones in the early stages of operations, as it costs as much as twice their annual salary to replace an employee. To mitigate this challenge, businesses ought to provide their employees with comprehensive medical coverage to help them tackle the burden of disease early on and proactively.
3. Attractive Employee Benefit
Offering health insurance as part of the employee health benefits package makes the organisation more appealing to candidates. According to a recent survey, 79% of the respondents would give preference to employers who provided health insurance benefits to them and their family members.
4. Reputation Building
Not only does corporate health insurance help attract and retain talent but it also makes your organisation appear more reputable and distinguished. A good business reputation can influence customer behaviour and contribute to the success of the business. By getting a comprehensive health insurance policy for your employees, you can set your business apart from your competitors.
5. Enhance Employee Morale
A healthy and happy workforce is the most productive one. Employees who feel cared for by their employers have a higher sense of purpose and morale at work. Therefore, enhanced employee morale is very critical to business productivity and success.
Also read: Top 5 Group Health Insurance Companies
Corporate Health Insurance: Benefits For Employees
Corporate health insurance is often employer-sponsored and therefore the employees are not required to pay for the medical coverage. They can get access to quality medical care without paying the insurance premium and avail the following benefits:
1. No Waiting Period
Most corporate health insurance policies have no waiting period, which means the policyholders can start availing the benefits from day one of the policy period. Additionally, if there is no waiting period for any pre-existing condition then they can start the treatment under their employer-sponsored health insurance and raise claims for hospitalisation, including pre and post-hospitalisation expenses. Most individual health insurance policies have a minimum waiting period of 30 days.
2. Coverage For Family Members
Many basic corporate health insurance plans include coverage for family members like spouses, children, and parents. So, employees don’t have to worry about getting an additional policy for their dependents as their employer-sponsored policy already has them and their loved ones covered.
3. Cashless Hospitalisation
Imagine going to the hospital for an emergency health crisis and then having to arrange the finances for hospitalisation or dealing with the third-party administrator for reimbursements after a tedious medical emergency. With corporate health insurance, the employees get the advantage of cashless hospitalisation with the network hospitals.
Network hospitals are the hospitals that are empaneled with the insurance provider under the group policy. Most insurance providers offer a wide range of network hospitals where employees can get treated without paying the treatment cost upfront.
4. Preventive Healthcare and Wellness Benefits
When it comes to healthcare, very little focus is placed on preventive care and wellness. This is mainly due to the increasing out-of-pocket expenses of emergency hospitalisation and critical illnesses. However, most corporate health insurance plans today come with outpatient treatment and wellness benefits that encourage employees to place equal focus on their holistic well-being.
5. Maternity Benefits
Maternity and neonatal coverage is extended as an optional benefit by the employers as part of the corporate health insurance plan. Employees can leverage this benefit to efficiently plan their maternity and newborn healthcare expenses.
Suggested read: Benefits of Group Health Insurance
Key Differences Between Corporate Health Insurance and Individual Health Insurance
- Corporate health insurance covers a group of people, most commonly employees of an organisation. Whereas, individual health insurance covers only one person or their family.
- Corporate health insurance is usually offered by employers, while individual health insurance is purchased by individuals, directly from insurance providers.
- Individual health insurance plans often require a medical check-up, but corporate health insurance plans usually don’t.
- Corporate health insurance policies usually don’t have waiting periods, so that coverage can begin immediately. The waiting period for individual health insurance is usually 30 days or more.
- Corporate health insurance is only valid till the period of employment and can only be ported if the option is available. Individual health insurance policy is valid for as long as the premium is paid and has a lifetime renewability.
- The premium per employee of a corporate health insurance policy is lower than that of an individual health insurance policy due to the risk pooling of the corporate health insurance policy.
Suggested read: Employer Employee Insurance
Limitations of Corporate Health Insurance
While there are many ways a corporate health insurance policy can benefit your organisation, there are some limitations that you should be aware of at the time of picking the most suitable plan for your team.
1. Limited Customisation
Many traditional insurance providers today give basic coverage that includes hospitalisation, pre and post-hospitalisation, ambulance coverage, and coverage for pre-existing diseases. However, when it comes to customisations and value add-ons, the basic policy fails to cover them.
2. Lack of Control
3. Cumbersome Claims Process
Most traditional group health insurance plans have a cumbersome claims process, locking the operational bandwidth of both the employer and the employee. Managing claims can get quite tedious in such a scenario.
Suggested read: Exclusions in Group Health Insurance
How Onsurity Combats Limitations And Exclusions of A Corporate Health Insurance Policy?
Onsurity is a new-age group health insurance provider that also provides wellness benefits to teams of all sizes. Here’s how Onsurity is helping businesses combat the limitations and exclusions of a traditional corporate health insurance plan.
1. Effortless Claims With Good Doctors
When it comes to managing claims and raising requests, businesses don’t have to worry about spending tedious hours filling out paperwork. Employees who use the Onsurity app can easily raise a cashless claim or request reimbursement via the app and get assisted by the Good Doctors team for all their health and claims-related enquiries.
The end-to-end claims management by Onsurity can help save critical business hours for your organisation’s HR SPOC.
2. Highly Customisable Plans For All Kinds Of Teams
Be it a small remote team or a large enterprise, Onsurity has customised plans for teams of all sizes. Making modifications or additions to the group health insurance plan is quite seamless with Onsurity.
Employers can get the most comprehensive health and wellness benefit package for their teams on a monthly subscription basis. Now no more hassle of annual billings with Onsurity.
3. Tech-Driven Experience For Teams
For Employers:
Onsurity’s smart dashboard – TeamSure is highly capable of managing group memberships, adding or removing employees, and tracking payments and claims. The dashboard seamlessly integrates with HRMS tools and automates various tasks like adding or removing a member, saving valuable time spent on manual efforts in managing group health insurance claims. The dashboard also provides complete control to the HR or the SPOC managing the organisation’s health insurance plan.
For Employees:
The Onsurity app is also available for employees to add family members, raise requests, order health checkups, make bookings, and more. In many traditional insurance plans, the employees do not have control over their company-sponsored health insurance plan which often results in the underutilisation of the policy. This is not the case with Onsurity. Employees have as much control over their health insurance plan as their employers and can therefore make the most of it.
Conclusion
Corporate health insurance policy covers teams in case of medical emergencies at a minimal cost to the employer. However, the long-term benefit of having group coverage far outweighs the costs and makes it the employee benefits one can offer to their team members.
No matter what your team size and requirements are, Onsurity has a customised solution that fits your team like a glove. Get a callback today!