Solutions

You can find our target market statement here.

Who do you know, and where do you work? In theory, many businesses can benefit from offering their employees a Group PMI policy – whether they’re a large manufacturing enterprise or a small family-run business employing only a handful of staff.

Individual clients

Thinking about your current client base may help you identify potential clients. Where two or three individuals are working for the same company, there’s a case for approaching their employer to highlight PMI as a desirable benefit to help support their staff.

It’s always worth approaching clients who are senior staff, directors, managers, or those who work in the areas dealing directly with employess such as HR departments to see if their company would welcome an opportunity to potentially save costs.

Small businesses

Networking will be natural to you as an adviser. Have you thought about how many potential clients you engage with in your social life? Think about local shop owners, plumbers, electricians, cleaning companies, your solicitor and accountant.

If employees in a small business have to spend time off work due to ill health, those companies may suffer a significant downturn in productivity. Introducing the concept of beating waiting lists may be very attractive to them.

Group employers

Estate agents, care homes, private schools – these are businesses that may have a chain or group of companies operating under one name. Make a professional approach to them, and demonstrate how a group PMI policy could save their business money by cutting absenteeism among employees and reducing the costs associated with covering absence.

Larger businesses

The larger the business, the more potential there is for a group PMI policy to have a significant impact on helping them save money.

• PMI could help attract and retain key staff
• Health-awareness programmes could improve employee wellbeing
• Businesses could also benefit by enhancing their commitment to employees.

If there’s a business with a significant number of employees that you’d like to talk to, we’re happy to give you help making a presentation – whether it’s a business without PMI in place, or a business that you feel may be prepared to switch providers. If you would like support, call our Health Trading Centre today, contact details can be found below.

TIP: At every individual review, ask “Does your business provide a PMI policy?” If the answer is ‘no’, you can move on to promote individual PMI – but you should also be making a note to contact that business. 

We’re still dealing with challenging economic times. But most business owners will appreciate an opportunity to save money, protect their competitive edge in a market, and safeguard a productive workforce irrespective of the company’s financial position.

These are some of the most common objections you’ll hear if you make an approach about Group PMI – and some ideas for overcoming them.

“My company already has a policy.”
“When was it last reviewed? Would there be an opportunity to quote against the same level of cover? If it’s possible to make savings by switching provider, would you be interested in spending half an hour with me…?”

In most cases we can help you prepare an outline illustration against other providers’ policies in advance, which helps you promote efficiency to the client.

“We just can’t afford it.”

The benefits should outweigh the cost. Plus, with Solutions, your clients can choose the cover that fits their needs, so they don’t have to buy benefits they don’t want or feel their employees don’t need.

In addition, there’s the option to vary the level of cover for different groups of employees. Directors could have a higher level of cover, for example, with reduced benefits for other members of staff.

There's also no lower limit to the number of members who can be placed in a group, helping sole traders and those with a much smaller workforce to ensure their cover fits their needs.

“It would cost us too much to change – we’ve made a claim.”
This isn’t necessarily the case. It’s often possible to take out a new policy and still have a similar level of cover. In some cases, a previous claim may not affect the premiums we’d propose at all.

“It would be too much hassle to change policies.”

We’ll do everything we can to help your clients make the switch. We realise that there’ll be some admin involved, but our switch-over process is designed to make things go as smoothly as possible.

In addition, much depends on the type of underwriting your client chooses – which is why we offer a continued medical exclusions option, a continued moratorium, and – if there are 15 or more employees on the scheme – a medical history disregarded option.

With a continued medical exclusions policy, for example, the exclusions for each member will be matched from the previous provider (if any), reducing the need for employees to re-submit health questionnaires.

Full Medical Underwriting involves more paperwork as the scheme would need to be re-underwritten, but this is something that we can help your client and their employees manage, minimising disruption to the business.

“No, I still can’t see the point.”
A PMI policy is an expense that some business clients may find hard to value while their employees are all fit and healthy. With Solutions, it's important to highlight the cost of workplace absence for long-term and short-term ill-health. Solutions could help get employees back to work and our added value benefits could help to prevent the causes of workplace absence.

There are three key points that are useful to communicate when you’re first engaging a business about group PMI. These are the main reasons for putting a policy into place:

• Improved health among the workforce – businesses that suffer from high levels of absenteeism could benefit from the services we offer via Solutions. Helplines are provided free of charge to all members on the policy and the BacktoBetter service means no more waiting for a GP appointment for musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions. The inclusion of Mental Health Pathway as standard also provides members with access to mental health treatment, based on their clinical need. This reduces delays in treatment for talking therapies and unnecessary admission to in-patient care.
• Commitment and loyalty – employees see benefits as an attraction during recruitment, and an incentive once employed. A group PMI policy is a demonstration of commitment to the employees’ welfare, as well as being a practical way to help manage workplace sickness absence.
• Commercial and financial advantages – a private medical insurance policy is also a tax-deductible business expense under current tax rules. And if any members of staff currently have individual policies in place, they could cut costs if their employer offers a scheme that they then join.

When you’re talking to a business, you’re proposing a policy that can affect – and help – many individuals. We’re here to give guidance on Solutions, and help you make a recommendation that’s right for both the employer and the employees. If you’d like our support, or would like to talk about a potential client:

For schemes with 1 to 99 employees, call the Healthcare Trading Centre: 0800 158 3348
Monday to Friday
9.00am - 5.00pm

For policy quotes, please email: hcquote@aviva.com

For schemes with 100 to 249 employees call Sales Support: 0800 0014 272
Monday to Friday
9.00am - 5.00pm

For policy quotes, please email: hcnd@aviva.com

Calls to and from Aviva may be monitored and/or recorded

Our health trading centre consultants can offer advice, help you submit the application, deal with underwriting queries, and give you information that will help your clients proceed with confidence as they buy a Solutions policy for their business. If you have clients with over 100 employees, our account managers will also be happy to accompany you on visits and assist with the sale.