When it comes to industries that have been slow to evolve, health insurance ranks near the top of the list. While the amount of coverage varies from plan to plan, traditional insurers offer nearly identical coverage to all their members. While this is less than customer-centric, it’s consistent with the lack of transparency that cloaks most health insurers.
Major insurance providers will cover many aspects of healthcare whether you want that coverage, or not. For example, most plans allocate a budget to be spent per category of health professionals – with little regard for how that money would be most useful to you. So, if you’ve suffered from an ankle injury and would like to apply your RMT dollars to physiotherapy instead, you can’t. The general rule seems to be that if it’s more costly for insurers, you can’t do it.
Beyond the rigid coverage, perhaps the most disappointing part of the traditional insurance experience is using an insurer’s online portal. Clunky, counter-intuitive, and utterly impossible are words that come to mind trying to accomplish even the simplest task. It’s almost as if they’ve intentionally built an unusable interface so that members can’t use their benefits to the fullest, or access the information they need.
In a world where every individual is unique, the one-size-fits-all approach to health insurance is much less than optimal. League, the now nearly-300-person team led by serial entrepreneur, Michael Serbinis, saw this opportunity and ran with it.
League’s Health Benefits Experience is a game changer for employee benefits. They offer flexible coverage, spending accounts, and a marketplace full of discounts on products and experiences like juice cleanses and gym memberships. All of this can be accessed through League’s easy-to-use mobile application.
Not only does the app serve as a reference of the benefits available, but as a place to educate and empower users to live a healthy life. It offers health programs that kick-start healthy behaviour and direct access to nurses to answer pressing health questions.
League’s holistic approach to health insurance puts people first. Plus, prioritizing member health today results in fewer claims tomorrow, so it’s a win-win. Toronto-based Sprout is built on a similar philosophy: by investing in corporate wellness, employers can boost their bottom-line.
Sprout’s health engagement platform inspires fitness and healthy behaviour through social accountability and gamification techniques. During the past year, while most of us have been working from home and keeping our social exposure to a minimum, Sprout has been particularly attentive to mental wellbeing as an important part of corporate wellness.
From a career perspective, these companies offer the stability of a historically successful industry, with the perks of improved technology and a real opportunity to make a difference in the lives of many. If you’re considering a change, check out their job boards. It won’t be long before League dominates the insurance market, and offerings like those from Sprout become fundamental to employee engagement and retention.