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Salary might be where the employment conversation starts, but it’s rarely where it ends.
Flexible working, leave, professional development, workplace culture and wellbeing all contribute to how employees value their overall employment package. For businesses competing for skilled people, those benefits can also influence how an organisation stands out to prospective employees.
But simply adding more perks isn’t necessarily the answer. A better question is: which benefits will your employees genuinely value? Corporate health insurance is one option worth considering. Unlike some workplace perks, its potential value extends beyond the working day into something relevant at every stage of life: our health.
So, could corporate health insurance benefit your employees? Let’s look at what it actually involves, the potential value for employees and employers, and the questions worth asking before deciding whether it’s right for your organisation.
At its simplest, corporate health insurance is private health insurance made available to employees through a partnership between their employer and a health insurer. It is an employee benefit that can give staff access to health cover and, depending on the offering, additional corporate benefits or offers. However, corporate health insurance doesn’t always mean an employer purchases and pays for one policy covering its entire workforce.
In Western Australia, an organisation can partner with a private health insurer to make a corporate health insurance offering available to eligible employees. Employees can then choose whether they want to take up the offer and select cover based on their own needs, circumstances and budget.
Depending on the insurer and offering, employees may be able to choose from:
This flexibility is important because employees won’t all have the same healthcare needs or priorities. Good corporate health insurance gives employees the opportunity to consider the level and type of cover that works for them, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach across the workforce.
You can learn more about how HIF Corporate Partnerships work or explore HIF’s different health insurance options.
Before asking what corporate private health insurance could do for your business, consider what it could offer your employees.
Think about the range of people within an average workforce. One employee may rarely use healthcare services beyond their GP. Another may regularly visit a dentist or physiotherapist. Someone may be starting a family, while another employee’s healthcare priorities may be changing as they get older. The potential value of employee health cover lies partly in its ability to accommodate those differences.
Choice That Reflects Different Needs
A workplace benefit becomes more relevant when employees have some choice over how it fits into their lives. With private health insurance, employees may be able to consider Hospital cover, Extras cover or a combination of both, depending on the options available through the corporate offer.
That means an employee interested primarily in everyday services such as dental and optical isn’t necessarily looking for the same thing as someone focused on private hospital treatment.
Rather than deciding what every employee should value, a corporate offer can give eligible employees an opportunity to consider the health cover appropriate to them.
Value Employees Can Use in Everyday Life
Health insurance isn’t only relevant when someone needs hospital treatment. Depending on their chosen Extras cover, employees may be able to claim benefits towards eligible services such as dental, optical, physiotherapy and chiropractic treatment.
For employees who use eligible services, Extras cover may provide value throughout the year through benefits towards applicable treatment costs, subject to the limits, waiting periods and other terms.
Access to Corporate Benefits
Depending on the offering, eligible employees may also have access to workplace-specific offers, such as corporate discounts or other tailored benefits, through their employer’s partnership with a health insurer. For HIF members, additional benefits may include access to health and wellbeing services through partnerships such as Mindset Health and SkinVision. These offers can provide additional value beyond the health cover itself, although availability and eligibility will vary between partnerships.
An employee benefit only becomes a meaningful business benefit if employees actually value it.
Corporate health insurance shouldn’t replace competitive remuneration, flexible working, leave, career development or the other fundamentals of a strong employee proposition. Instead, it can sit alongside them as another tangible benefit.
Strengthen Your Overall Employee Value Proposition
When candidates compare roles, salary is only one part of the overall proposition.
Providing access to employee health insurance gives employers another practical benefit they can communicate during recruitment and throughout an employee’s time with the organisation.
For existing employees, it can also add another layer to the total value they receive beyond their base salary.
Put Something Practical Behind Employee Wellbeing
Many organisations include health and wellbeing within their people strategy. The challenge is turning that commitment into something tangible.
Providing employees with access to a corporate health insurance offering can be one practical component of a broader wellbeing offering, particularly when employees have the flexibility to choose cover based on their individual healthcare needs.
It shouldn’t be positioned as something that automatically makes employees healthier or more productive. Rather, it gives employees another option for managing and accessing healthcare.
Differentiate Your Employment Offering
This can become particularly relevant when recruiting in competitive industries or for hard-to-fill roles. Workplace incentives and employee benefits can play a role in attracting and retaining workers. For organisations competing for skilled people, private health insurance may therefore provide another point of difference within the overall employment package.
Not every employee benefit will be equally valuable to every workforce. Before comparing insurers or available offers, it’s worth taking a closer look at your employees and what they actually need.
| Consider | What to think about |
|---|
| Who makes up your workforce? | Consider the different ages, life stages, family circumstances and healthcare priorities represented across your organisation. |
| What benefits do employees already value? | Employee surveys, engagement research and feedback from your People & Culture team can provide useful insight into what employees value, rather than relying on assumptions. |
| Where are your employees located? | For WA businesses in particular, your workforce may extend across Perth, regional and remote WA or interstate. Consider whether the available options and support will work well across different locations. |
| How important is flexibility? | Employees are unlikely to have identical healthcare needs. Consider whether they will have meaningful choice over the type and level of cover they select. |
| What are you trying to achieve? | Consider whether your goal is to strengthen your employee value proposition, respond to employee feedback, support your wellbeing program or differentiate your recruitment offering. |
Being clear about your workforce and what you want the benefit to achieve will make it much easier to decide whether a corporate health offering is the right fit for your organisation.
If corporate health insurance looks like a good fit, the next decision is choosing the right partner.
Price and corporate offers will naturally be part of that comparison, but they shouldn’t be the only considerations. The experience your employees receive once the corporate partnership is in place matters too.
Corporate Health Insurance Provider Comparison Checklist
| Area | What to consider | Questions to ask |
|---|
| Corporate offering | The overall value employees could receive beyond their chosen health cover. | What corporate benefits or offers are available? |
|---|
| Cover & choice | Whether the available options can accommodate different healthcare needs, circumstances and budgets across your workforce. | How much choice will employees have over their cover? |
|---|
| Provider choice | The level of flexibility employees have when choosing where to access eligible Extras services. | Can employees choose their preferred registered Extras providers? |
|---|
| Payments & claims | How simple the membership experience will be for employees, from joining through to managing payments and making claims. | What payment options are available, and how straightforward is it to join and make a claim? |
|---|
| Member experience | Whether employees have convenient ways to access information and manage their health insurance. | What online or digital member services are available? |
|---|
| Employee support | The assistance employees can access if they need help understanding or managing their cover. | What support is available when employees have questions? |
|---|
| Employer support | The ongoing assistance available to your HR or benefits team once the corporate offering is established. | Is there a dedicated local relationship manager to support our organisation? |
|---|
| Health & wellbeing benefits | Any additional services or partnerships that could provide value alongside employees’ health cover. | What additional health and wellbeing offers are available to employees? |
|---|
| Location & accessibility | Whether employees can access appropriate cover and support regardless of where they are based. | Will the offering work for employees across different locations? |
|---|
| Insurer values | The insurer’s broader approach, values and suitability as a long-term partner for your organisation. | What does the insurer stand for and how does it operate? |
|---|
For employers considering corporate private health insurance, it can help to look at how an offering works in practice.
HIF has longstanding Western Australian roots and provides private health insurance to members across Australia. HIF works with organisations and associations to provide eligible employees and members with access to corporate health insurance benefits.
Bespoke Corporate Partnerships can provide access to benefits such as discounts on HIF health insurance, depending on the organisation and the offering in place.
The offers and benefits available can differ between Corporate Partnerships, so businesses considering an offering should discuss their organisation, workforce and requirements directly with HIF. HIF also provides dedicated corporate support, including a dedicated relationship manager, to assist employers and their employees with questions about their health insurance.
The answer depends less on whether corporate health insurance is a “good” employee benefit in isolation and more on whether it is a good fit for your people.
If your employees value additional support around healthcare, corporate health insurance could be a worthwhile addition to your organisation’s overall employee benefits offering. The key is understanding what your employees value and whether the available cover, flexibility and support align with their needs.
After all, a long list of workplace perks doesn’t necessarily create a great employee benefits package. The benefits that matter are the ones that provide genuine value to the people receiving them.
If you’re considering adding private health insurance to your employee benefits offering, the HIF Corporate Partnerships team can help you explore how an offer could work for your organisation and employees. HIF provides dedicated corporate support, including a dedicated relationship manager who can assist your HR or benefits team with areas such as reporting, billing and policy management.
What is corporate health insurance?
Corporate health insurance is private health insurance made available to eligible employees through a partnership between an employer and a health insurer. Depending on the offering, employees may be able to access corporate offers or benefits while choosing health cover suited to their individual circumstances.
How does corporate health insurance work?
The employer establishes a corporate partnership with a private health insurer. Eligible employees can then choose whether to join and, depending on the offering, select from available Hospital, Extras or Combined cover options. The exact benefits and joining process vary between insurers and corporate partnerships.
What are the benefits of corporate health insurance for employees?
Potential private health insurance benefits for employees include access to corporate offers and the ability to select private health cover based on their individual healthcare needs. Depending on their chosen policy, this may include Hospital cover and benefits towards eligible Extras services such as dental, optical and physiotherapy.
What are the benefits of corporate health insurance for employers?
Corporate health insurance can add another tangible benefit to an organisation’s overall employee value proposition. It may complement existing remuneration, wellbeing and employee benefits strategies and can give employers another benefit to communicate when seeking to attract and retain employees.
Is corporate health insurance the same as group health insurance?
The terms corporate health insurance and group health insurance are sometimes used interchangeably, but offers can differ. In Australia, a corporate offer doesn’t necessarily mean every employee is covered under one policy. Employees may instead be able to choose and hold their own private health insurance through their employer’s corporate offer.
Does an employer have to pay for employee health insurance?
Not necessarily. How an offer is structured can vary between employers and insurers. Businesses considering employee health cover should clarify what financial contribution, if any, the organisation will make and what costs employees will be responsible for.
Can employees choose their own private health cover?
This depends on the corporate offer. With HIF Corporate Partnerships, eligible employees can consider available health insurance options and select cover appropriate to their individual needs rather than every employee receiving identical cover.
Can corporate health insurance cover employees across Australia?
This depends on the insurer and offer. Businesses with employees in multiple locations should check whether the insurer and available cover are suitable for employees across Australia, particularly organisations with regional, remote or interstate workforces.
What should a business look for in a corporate health insurance provider?
Consider more than the headline offer. Look at employee choice, available Hospital and Extras cover, the joining and claiming experience, digital services, customer support, geographic suitability and how easily employees can understand and access the corporate offer.
How does a HIF Corporate Partnership work?
Through a HIF Corporate Partnership, eligible employees can access a corporate health insurance offer established between HIF and their employer or organisation. Available offers and benefits vary between partnerships, so employers can speak with HIF about the offer appropriate to their organisation.