What Is Group Health Insurance?

Group health insurance or corporate health insurance plans provide health insurance coverage to the employees of an organization. When employees undergo any medical expense, the insurance policy covers it. And the group health insurance premiums are generally paid by the company. Companies can also include dependents of the employees in the policy.

Employees are the pillars of a company or an organization. Today, employers are realizing the depth of having to take care of employees and the gains they reap, especially in attracting and retaining top talent. To enable this, employers package employee benefits that ensure employees are happy personally and working for the company. These include paid leaves, paid vacations, team outings, a thriving culture, gifts, and insurance policies, mental wellness, allowances for learning, fitness, etc. One of the common insurance employers provide is group health insurance, also known as corporate medical insurance and employee health insurance.

How does employee health insurance work?

Employee health insurance is a highly customizable and negotiable insurance policy. There are multiple things to consider while determining the policy coverage to ensure your employees have a good insurance experience.

You can read about it in-depth in the coverage section. In a nutshell, this is how GHI works 👇🏻

• Employers buy the group health insurance from insurers/agents/brokers. HRs talk to multiple insurers, state their requirements and get quotes. In this process, the HRs tell the insurers about the employee strength and what type of coverage they want. Based on that, insurers give quotations.‍
• Employers pay the premium and buy the insurance policy that covers all their employees for 1 year.
• Employees get their health insurance cards with the policy number. They can use that to claim their medical expenses when they undergo any treatment or hospitalization.

Why invest in group health insurance?

Good health and well-being help people to work productively and efficiently towards the business goals and objectives of the organization. In the current scenario, lifestyle diseases are taking a toll on the health and well-being of an individual. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic scenario has even made healthy people sick. Basic health requirements are becoming costlier. The increase in healthcare expenses and diseases has made the need for health insurance policy inevitable for having strong finances at tough times. Providing corporate health insurance to employees can not only benefit them but also greatly benefit the organization or the employer. Let’s see how.

Workplace wellness

There is no greater wealth than being healthy and happy. Employee mental health and happiness are considered very important owing to the stress that one undergoes every day. Having medical insurance cannot guarantee good health but can support and provide financial assistance during any tough times. Hence it empowers them and also makes them feel they are cared for. Many employees also look for the group health insurance provided by the companies before securing a job. This makes them happy and increases their efficiency to work for the company and thereby keeping the workspace happy.

Employee retention

As mentioned earlier, happy employees make happier workplaces. Employees are inclined towards jobs that provide them security. Providing a group health insurance policy can help the company to retain these talents as they will be happy which makes the possibility of them leaving the company lesser. A successful company can be made as the employees are loyal and happy, increasing the employee retention rate.

Goodwill generation and upliftment

There is nothing better than hearing “this is a good workplace to work in” from the employees themselves. Providing an insurance cover can uplift the employee and also create a good brand name for the employer in the industry. This promotes the goodwill of the company and makes existing employees feel cared for. Thus creating a positive outlook.

Convenient and economical

The employer does not need to worry about managing insurance-related processes as nowadays the insurance companies are tech-savvy. In the current scenario, digital-first insurance companies have made policy purchases, customer service, and claims settlement easy and convenient. An employer can pay the premium on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis based on the convenience of the organization if the insurer is flexible. The group health insurance is carefully curated in such a way that it benefits several members of the organization. This makes the cost of the premium to be paid lesser as the risk involved is spread across different members of the company, hence making the group insurance plan cheaper and more economical than an individual health insurance plan.

Also read: Employee benefits insurance