Group Health Insurance

What is Group Health Insurance?

As a New Zealand employer you are able to offer your staff a Group Health Insurance cover as part of their remuneration package. A Group Health Insurance scheme can consist of 5 to 5000 employees. You are able to gain substantial discounts and benefits such as pre-existing cover for existing conditions for all your staff and their families. This may be subsidised by you the employer or you may wish to operate a voluntary scheme. Contact Healthsure for a detailed proposal on the range of options available.

Did you know…….?

For as little as 1% of your payroll (approx $10 per week per staff member) you could provide your employees with a subsidised health plan. This is a good alternative when considering salary increases.

Improve Productivity

The average waiting time between GP referral and hospitalisation is on average 5 weeks if you have health insurance versus 16 weeks if uninsured.
Source: TNS survey, 2004

Time off due to illness requiring surgery is significantly reduced for those insured versus those uninsured (14 days vs 48 days).
Source: TNS survey, 2004

Performance and productivity suffers when employees do not have health insurance and are waiting for treatment (75% continue to work normally while waiting for treatment vs 52% if uninsured).
Source: TNS survey, 2004

Recruitment and Retention

65 per cent of employees are more likely to remain with their employer if they have subsidised health insurance.
Source: TNS survey, 2004

Attracting and retaining staff was ranked the biggest challenge in 2007 faced by the Deloitte/ Unlimited Fast 50 companies.
Source: Unlimited magazine, November 2007

89% of employees are very or somewhat positive towards there employer as a result of subsidised health insurance.
Source: TNS survey, 2004

As reported in June 2007, 60 per cent of New Zealand businesses put skill shortage at the top
of their list of expansion constraints.
Source: New Zealand Herald, 29 June 2007

On average, replacing a manager or technical professional costs 18 months salary and replacing waged employees costs six months pay.
Source: HR Magazine, December 2006/2007

A 2008 survey of 19,000 college students in the United States found that medical insurance topped the list of 6 most important employee benefits when they contemplated job offers.
Source: Workforce Benefits Management Vol 2 No 9, September 2008

Reduce Absence from Work

In New Zealand, illness and absenteeism cost business around NZ$940 million a year.
Source: Southern Cross Conversa Global research, July 2005

NZIER research on the effect of output on a day off work found an average $100 was lost for every employee absent for a day. For the whole economy, the savings from workplace health insurance in terms of loss of output avoided is $117 million a year.
Original source unfound. Taken from article titled ‘Happiness Insured July 2008” by Roger Styles - Executive Director of HFANZ

A Medibank Private survey found that Australian employees with poor health behaviours have up to 9 times the annual sickness absence of healthy individuals (18 days compared to two
days per year).
Source: The health of Australia’s workforce, November 2005, Medibank Private

Whenever an employee takes unplanned leave, it represents a cost to an organisation. There are two types of costs to consider. The direct costs – which are tangible and therefore quite easy to calculate, and the indirect costs, which are much harder to quantify and are often substantially higher than the direct cost.

Widespread failure to invest in workplace health and wellbeing can have dramatic consequences for companies. In the UK, 175 million days were lost to sickness absence in 2006, costing the economy £13.4 billion.
Source: CBI/AXA turnover survey 2007