Vitality Company Health Insurance [Review]

Who Are Vitality?

Vitality is one of the UK’s leading company health insurance providers. It currently provides cover to more than 1 million customers in the UK.

Its mission is to make people healthier by rewarding positive lifestyle choices. When your employees get healthier, Vitality will reward them through its Vitality Programme. A reward-based incentive system for healthy living.

It offers award winning cover that is rated 5 Star by Defaqto. As well as this, it holds an ‘excellent’ rating on Trustpilot, with a score of 4.0 stars out of 5 from more than 25,000 independent reviews.

Vitality Business Health Insurance

Vitality offers different group private medical insurance options for businesses of all sizes. One of its most popular plans is Business Healthcare.

This is aimed at small and medium business with up to 249 employees. Like its other products it’s designed to protect employers and their employees from the financial impact of becoming unwell.

Vitality Business Healthcare Policy Overview

Vitality’s Business Healthcare policy includes the following features:

• Full Cover Promise
  At a core level, Vitality promises that all in-patient and day-patient treatments are covered in full, as long as the treatment is eligible
• Digital Care Access
  Your employees will have access to virtual GP appointments through the Vitality GP app. On top of that, staff can self-refer online for a range of remote therapies, including physiotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy
• Advanced Cancer Cover
  All of Vitality’s Business Healthcare plans come with Advanced Cancer Cover, giving your employees full access to screenings, preventative treatment, and biological and targeted therapies. They’ll also receive support and guidance from specialists throughout their treatment journey
• Mental Health Support
  Vitality’s core cover includes a 12-month subscription to mindfulness app Headspace and 8 talking therapies sessions for your employees, to help prevent and treat any mental health issues
• Vitality Programme
  Your employees can take a health review to receive some personalised health and wellbeing goals along with a number of discounts and rewards. Starting at bronze level, all staff can earn Vitality Points to increase their status and reduce their policy excess.

What Does The Vitality Business Health Insurance Cover?

Vitality’s Business Healthcare plan is aimed towards small and medium businesses by providing primary care to employees when they need it most. The core cover it offers is outlined below.

Core Cover

All Vitality group health insurance includes the following core core.

In-Patient Treatment

As standard Vitality’s Business Healthcare provides full cover for in-patient treatment. This is any treatment that requires employees to stay in hospital overnight. Cover includes hospital and consultant fees, diagnostic tests, MRI, CT and PET scans. Major surgeries with long recovery times, such as heart surgery, will fall under inpatient care.

Day-Patient Treatment

As part of the core cover, your employees will be covered in full for minor procedures that need some recovery time in a hospital bed, but that won’t require them to stay over night. Surgeries for cataracts, varicose veins and hernias are common examples.

Out-Patient Surgeries

Vitality’s policy provides cover for operations or other invasive procedures carried out as an out-patient. These also allow patients to go home the same day, but without admitting them to a hospital. Procedures like growth or skin tag removal, surgical dentistry, and biopsies will come under out-patient surgery.

Any diagnostic tests, consultations, scans or treatment that is not a surgical procedure will be covered under your plans chosen out-patient cover.

Advanced Cancer Cover

This provides your employees with full cover to help them cope with a cancer diagnosis. Treatment covered includes preventive cancer treatment, diagnostic tests, surgery, drug therapies and radiotherapy.

Care to relieve pain and other symptoms is also included as part of Vitality’s End of life cover, as well as home nursing costs of up to £1,000 per day for a maximum of 14 days.

Vitality also offers a Corporate Health Insurance plan for businesses with 100 or more employees. It offers the same core cover as the Business Healthcare policy, but with additional cover for childbirth, menopause and cancer recovery – plus additional rewards.

For more information on this, speak to one of our experts on 0207 442 5880 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.

Nadeem Farid
Head of Health & Wellbeing

Vitality Business Healthcare Options

The core cover included in Vitality’s business health insurance gives your staff a great deal of essential cover. If you’d still like to provide more protection for your employees, you can enhance the plan by adding on any number of optional extras.

Adding all of them will increase the cost of the policy, but your employees will have a more comprehensive private health insurance policy to cover most eventualities of becoming ill.

Out-Patient Cover

Although out-patient surgeries are covered by Vitality at a core level, there are other out-patient procedures that you can include on your policy. Consultations, consultants’ fees, and diagnostic tests (for example, blood tests and x-rays) can also be covered up to a set limit per policy year:

• £500
• £750
• £1,000
• £1,250
• £1,500
• Full cover.

Your employees can also receive £35 of cover for each session of physiotherapy they have in facilities outside of your chosen Vitality hospital list.

Therapies Cover

This is a popular option which many employers add. It provides staff with cover for a range of health treatments and therapies. For example chiropractic, osteopathy, chiropody, podiatry, acupuncture and homeopathic treatment are covered in full.

With this add on, staff are also entitled to two consultations per policy year with a dietician following a GP or consultant referral.

Mental Health Cover

Mental health conditions affect a large proportion of people and for some the mental health support that comes with core cover might not be enough. Adding the option for extra mental health cover gives your teams the following:

• In-patient and day-patient mental health treatment is covered for up to 28 days per policy year
• Out-patient mental health treatment is covered for up to £1,500 per policy year
• Talking therapies at facilities within the Vitality hospital network are covered in full.

Hospital Options

Another option you’ll need to consider for your group health policy is the hospital networks you’ll have access to.

Countrywide

The Countrywide network includes all facilities in the UK’s largest hospital groups, including BMI Healthcare, Nuffield Health, Spire Healthcare, Ramsay Health Care and Circle Health. It also gives your employees access to some Central London facilities.

This option also enables your employees to have two Face-to-Face GP consultations in the London area.

London Care

While this option is the highest in terms of cost, it also gives your employees access to the most comprehensive list of facilities. Staff will be able to use all private hospitals in the UK that meet Vitality’s quality requirements, as well as all NHS Private Patient Units in the UK.

On top of that, the London Care option also includes unlimited Face-to-Face GP consultations in the London area.

Consultant Select

The Consultant Select option is the most cost effective option, however it works slightly differently. Rather than having access to a specific list of clinics, Vitality will draw up a shortlist of experts to carry out treatment following a GP referral. They’ll provide a choice of up to 10 of the highest-ranking consultants for the issue, based on their specialist field, performance and location.

Optical, Dental & Audiological Cover

This add on helps your employees to cover the costs of treatment and tests relating to their eyesight, oral health and hearing.

• Optical
  £500 of cover for sight tests and new prescription glasses or contact lenses supplied by Vitality’s network provider. Or up to 80% of the costs up to £300 a year if using an optician outside of Vitality’s network
• Dental
  £100 per year for dental check-ups, x-rays of the mouth and jaw and routine scaling and polishing. 80% of the costs up to £400 a year for treatment such as fillings, crowns and root treatment. And £2,500 per claim (max 2 claims per year) for treatment by a dentist following an accidental dental injury
• Hearing
  80% of the costs up to £300 per year for hearing tests and new prescription hearing aids.

Worldwide Travel Cover

By adding this option you would provide your employees with comprehensive cover for trips outside of the UK of up to 120 days each. It includes:

• Up to £10 million cover for overseas medical expenses
• £2,500 cover for burial or cremation outside of the UK
• Up to £500 cover for winter sports equipment per policy year.

Personal Health Fund

Available on plans covering at least 2 employees, the Personal Health Fund is similar to a corporate health cash plan. It helps employees pay for everyday healthcare bills which aren’t fully covered by private health care. This includes things such as health screens and chronic prescriptions.

Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

If your employees have worries concerning their work or personal life Vitality’s EAP could help. Through this they can get access to:

• a 24-hour telephone advice line, 365 days a year
• debt counselling and legal and financial advice
• up to six confidential, face to face counselling sessions per year.

Additional Benefits

Regardless of the other options you build on top of your core cover, all Vitality Business Healthcare plans include some fantastic additional benefits as standard.

Vitality GP

With all Business Healthcare plans employees will get unlimited access to Vitality GP. A digital doctors service which allows employees to speak to a GP at a time that suits them. They can get expert advice, private prescriptions and onward referrals all through a handy app.

Through Vitality GP, employees can also get up to 2 face-to-face consultations with a private GP from the Vitality network. It’s important to note that there is a £20 fee per consultation.

Mental Health Support

All policies give your employees access to a number of mental health support services. This includes to up to 8 Talking Therapies sessions with no medical exclusions.

Not only this they will get access to Togetherall, an award-winning online mental health service which provides support 24 / 7. Employees can also get a 12 month subscription to the popular ‘Headspace’ mindfulness app.

NHS Hospital Cash Benefit

If your employees receive medical care from the NHS that would’ve been eligible under the policy, they’ll receive a cash payment from Vitality. This pays out the following amounts:

• £250 per night for NHS in-patient treatment, up to a total of £2,000 per policy year
• £125 per day of day-patient treatments, up to a total of £500 per policy year.

Menopause Support

Vitality have partnered with Peppy to provide support to those transitioning through menopause. Peppy connects your employees to real-life menopause practitioners through one-to-one messaging, video or phone consultations. These practitioners can provide advice on symptom management and refer employees for treatment when needed.

Vitality Programme

As Vitality’s core mission is to enhance and protect people’s health, their core business health insurance includes a robust lifestyle programme. It helps staff focus on becoming healthier by providing a range of added benefits:

• Fitness and wellbeing discounts
• Expert guidance for nutrition
• Support to stop smoking
• Health screenings.

All employees start at a bronze status and can earn Vitality Points to reach silver, gold, and finally platinum status by completing personalised goals. When your staff level up, they can earn a cheaper policy excess.

Other Additional Benefits

It’s important to know all the benefits on offer with Vitality’s policy. As well as the above they also offer some other benefits which can easily get overlooked when looking at a policy. These include:

• Private Prescriptions & Minor Diagnostic Tests – Up to £100 per policy year for minor diagnostic tests and private prescriptions when referred or issued by a Vitality GP or Private GP in the Vitality network
• Childbirth Cash Benefit
  £100 cash benefit for the birth or adoption of a child if the member has been covered by the plan for at least 10 months
• Pregnancy Complications
  Full cover for in-patient or out-patient treatment if an employee suffers from ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, missed abortion, still birth, post-partum haemorrhage, retained placental membrane or hydatidiform mole. If there are 20 or more employees on your plan a caesarean section will also be covered in specified circumstances
• Parent Accommodation
  Accommodation for one parent is covered in full where children under the age of 14 require in-patient treatment
• Home Nursing
  If recommended by a consultant, this benefit provides full cover if an employee needs a qualified nurse to care for them at home following an eligible in-patient treatment
• Private Ambulance
  Use of private ambulance for a transfer between hospitals, whether NHS or private, if a consultant recommends it as medically necessary
• Oral Surgery
  Cover is also provided for surgical removal of impacted teeth or partially erupted teeth causing repeated pain or infections and complicated buried roots, surgical drainage of a facial swelling, removal of cysts of the jaw, and apicectomy. If your employees have an accident Vitality can also cover some kinds of dental surgery.

How Much Does Vitality Business Health Insurance Cost?

When it comes to the cost of a Vitality Business Healthcare plan there are a number of factors that will have an impact. Some will be specific to your business such as:

• How many employees you have
• The average age of your team
• Your company’s location (Central London companies cost more to insure)
• The frequency of your payments (paying annually is cheaper than paying monthly).

There are however other factors specific to your policy and the options you choose that will affect the cost of your business health insurance. We’ve outlined these below.

Medical Underwriting Options

All insurance policies go through a form of underwriting before a policy will begin. The kind of underwriting that takes place for a company health insurance policy will have an impact on the price. You’ll have a choice between the following options:

• Full Medical Underwriting
  Each employee completes a medical assessment. Exclusions may be applied for any pre-existing conditions any member might have, meaning they won’t be covered by the plan. As all risk factors have been disclosed, this is the most cost-effective option
• Moratorium
  Employees wouldn’t need to answer any health questions when the policy is taken out. However in the event of a claim Vitality wouldn’t pay out for any medical condition which occurred in the 5 years before the policy started. Because of this it gives a more average price-point

• Medical History Disregarded
  With this option no medical declaration is needed. Any pre-existing conditions are automatically included which makes it a more expensive option. It is generally available for businesses of at least 20 employees
• Continued Medical Exclusions
  This only applies for companies with existing group health insurance. The same exclusions for any pre-existing conditions will continue to be applied by a new provider.

Excess

Opting to have your team members pay an excess in the event of a claim will impact the cost of the policy. As with most kinds of insurance, a higher excess will make the policy cheaper, while a lower excess will increase the price.

Vitality’s excess options are outlined below:

• £0
• £100
• £150
• £200
• £500.

While selecting a higher excess can be a good way to reduce the cost of the company health insurance policy, it will still need to be an affordable amount for staff. They’ll need to pay the excess once per policy year on their first claim.

Example Cost

To give a clearer indication of price, we’ve provided some examples below. These are based on a company based in London and one in Leicester. Each has 6 employees, aged 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 with the following cover options:

• £1,000 out-patient cover
• Moratorium underwriting
• £250 excess
• Monthly premiums.

As you can see, the company in Leicester would pay just over £5.00 per team member each week. This works out as £135.98 per month, or £1,631.76 for the policy year.

By comparison, the same size business operating in London pays almost £11.00 per week for each member of staff. Over the month, that adds up to £284.93, or £3,419.52 for the policy year.

Remember, you can always tailor your plan by adding or removing certain features that matter more to you and your team. This flexibility means there’s a range of options to suit every budget.

Small business health insurance is age-rated. So the amount you pay is based on the average age of your team. This means your premium will go up slightly each year inline with your employees age as the risk of claims increases.

Nadeem Farid
Head of Health & Wellbeing

Get Expert Help Setting Up Your Vitality Business Healthcare Insurance

With Vitality offering so many customisable features, it can be difficult to know where to start when setting up a company health insurance policy. The features and benefits you’ll offer your staff might differ depending on your industry, as well as your company size and wellbeing goals.

Whether you need small business health insurance or corporate health insurance, our expert employee benefits consultants are on hand to help. We’ll listen to your needs and provide all the important information, making sure you get the best possible price for your desired cover.

To speak to one of the team call 02074425880 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.

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