Health insurance Cover is a good benefit to retain staff

Large numbers of HR specialists are of the opinion that take home pay is more important for attracting the talent as well retaining the staff.

We have come across survey where top 125 employers comprising a large and varied industry segments were surveyed. The findings are;

Over 40% Indian companies use health care cover for employees as a tool to attract talent and a retention strategy. Rising premium costs have not reduced the importance of health care cover as an employment value differentiator and Indian companies continue to use it as part of their hiring and retention strategy.

Only 11% use it to minimize loses arising out of employee heath issues.
58% companies did not deduct any premium costs out of employee salary, which means that 100% cost is booked by the company as an expense.

Rising health care costs are making are making corporate strive to strike a balance between increasing premium costs and talent management strategies. It is vital that employers design appropriate health care plans, employ efficient ways to manage them and to ensure employees understand their value.

Corporate are constantly devising different strategies to control healthcare costs. Companies are using;
1. Emphasizing on employee education for healthcare.
2. Removing the parents of employees from the coverage as higher premium is being charged by the Insurance companies for covering the parents.

Only 17% companies cover post-retirement medical expenditure, most of which are public sector companies. We foresee that this will be reduced in near future as more and more PSU’s go in for disinvestment and start coming at par with Private companies which are quote on the stock exchange.

This shows that healthcare cover is being provided only for the benefit of the companies and not for the employees. Better health of the employees means better productivity for the company. Also by providing health cover companies save on medical expenditure to be incurred on health of the employees.