Underwriting firm, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc has boosted Health Management Organizations (HMOs) enrollee benefits, while also increasing insurance penetration through quality product redelivery.
The insurer said it has established a strategic partnership with LifePartners, a leading HMO to grow it’s Term Assurance and Loss of Job covers.
Akin Ogunbiyi, chairman, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc speaking at a formal presentation of the products to her retailers in Lagos said “HMO’s have an organized clientele base that we can partner with to enhance their healthcare benefits, and at the same time sell other insurance products.”
Ogunbiyi said his company, Mutual Benefits Life Assurance is currently partnering with an HMO to enable its enrollees enjoy extended benefits from conventional insurance products.
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According to him, HMOs pull about N100 billion premium annually, and this is just from a small percentage of the population, so the potential of that industry is huge, and we are happy to partner with them, Ogunbiyi said.
Ademola Ifagbayi, managing director, Mutual Benefits Life said “what we have done at Mutual Benefits is to partner an HMO. We looked at the product they have for their enrollees and said, what happens to beneficiaries of this healthcare package if the chief contribute passes on.”
“Therefore, we came up with a product that says, if the contributor passes on, his wife and four children should continue to enjoy that healthcare for at least two years; or the HMO during a condolence to the bereaved family presents a cheque of N500,000 to N1 million as additional compensation, Ifagbayi said.
According to him, this package is exciting and has been largely accepted by our partner enrollees.
“We asked ourselves, what value are HMOs adding to family in case an enrollee passes on, that is always the end of the relationship. We believe that the HMO can go a bit further to support the family that is why we introduced as part of the health package a term life assurance cover up to N500, 000 to N1million, they will package as a rider to the product that they are selling to the enrollee.”
Again, we discovered that whenever an employee works with an organization leaves the employment, either termination or restructuring, the first thing that they lose is their health cover. But we now discovered that we have a loss of job insurance cover that can guarantee the benefit of the family in the next one year. We did our research and we discovered it takes a waiting period of six to seven months for 70 percent of people to secure a new job after they lose their job, Ifagbayi said.
He said “what we did is to introduce the loss of job cover to the amount of premium that they pay to the HMOs, so if anything happens to them we pay the claim to the HMO.”
Ifagbayi explained that HMO is always an integral part of the family because their spouses and children are involved.
“HMOs market controls a large number of people that believes in what they are doing and they are leveraging on us to ensure that we continue to get the patronage of their enrollees if they are not longer working in a paid employment why at the same time they are equally helping us to sell our term assurance products, so is a symbiotic relationship that adds value to both organisations, Ifagbayi said.
On training for their retail team, he said “what we did today is to ensure we get the buying in of our retail team to enlighten them on the products and to sell the products.”
