Over the past three years, Bayzat has helped over 1,000 companies find the right health insurance policy. We’ve always been obsessed with using technology to improve our customer experience by automating processes. As a result, we’ve gathered vast amounts of data on how long different health insurance processes take.
Considering that 46% of health insurance customers are not satisfied with their policy, the results of our analysis are probably not surprising to most.
Customer satisfaction rates
We surveyed insurance customers on how satisfied they are with various aspects of their health insurance policy:
While customers are mostly satisfied with the value they’re getting for what they spend, their views on servicing levels and turnaround times are the opposite. Our data supports and explains these views:
As the data shows, it takes 22 days on average for a company to complete the buying process. When a policy is being placed, data is shared with at least four different stakeholders, usually via email and Excel. Coupled with the fact that a customer who is not using a modern HR solution is likely to make some mistakes in providing documentation to the insurer, it is no wonder that policy placement takes so long. This can lead to some important ramifications:
1. Companies should choose and confirm their health insurance policy at least 30 days before the expiry date, or their employees will have a gap in direct billing services. This means they will need to pay for treatments out of pocket during the policy placement period, and they will usually only get reimbursed 80% of the cost by the insurance company. Not only that, but with an average reimbursement period of 14.4 days, this means your employees will have the added frustration of waiting on this payment.
2. In many cases, a company will not be able to start the process to add a new employee to the policy during the policy placement period. Adding or removing an employee to a policy (known as an endorsement) is one of the biggest sources of frustration for customers. Adding an employee to a policy takes an average of 9.4 days in the UAE. This really hurts the employee onboarding experience, as they won’t have access to any direct billing for over a week. Moreover, an employee won’t be able to complete their residency visa process until the health insurance policy has been issued.
In conclusion, when shopping for group health insurance, employers have high expectations and want the most comprehensive and efficient policies for their employees. As the data shows, the insurance industry in the UAE has a significant amount of work to do before it meets the expectations of buyers. At Bayzat, we are pioneering a customer-first approach in the region, where policy placement and endorsements will happen in real-time so your employees don’t have to wait to get covered. To learn more about how we can partner with you to deliver a best-in-class group health scheme, contact us today.
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