Cash plans have been a staple of the UK healthcare market for decades, however there are some storm clouds growing on the horizon. The market today is driven by corporate sales, underpinned by employers paying part or all of a premium as a means of supporting the retention and welfare of their employees. Cash Plan providers face a number of challenges as evidenced by:
A striking feature of the Cash Plan market is the heavy marketing reliance on non-insured benefits such as 24/7 GP access, mental health applications, and cash back on everyday health costs.
The best measure of how consumers feel about Cash Plans is the level of sales without broker or employer involvement (i.e. the direct to consumer channel). Since 2005, the size of this market has halved in size. In response, Cash Plan providers have reverted to delivering propositions that are a one size fits all, focusing on people over the age of 45 with families. Not surprisingly, this cohort are the biggest claimers, and they are also somewhat more tolerant of an analogue customer experience, which younger cohorts would reject. Despite the one size fits all approach, propositions are also complicated with a high amount of techical jargon, resulting in consumers being uncertain about what benefits they can expect, which does not bode well for growth.
The NHS has been a global benchmark for healthcare systems around the world. Consumers in the UK place a high degree of trust and reliance that the NHS will be there when they need healthcare. However in recent years, wait times for many procedures including dentistry have lengthened which should support growth in Cash Plan sales. Whilst not a direct relationship, other classes of insurance (e.g. pets, boilers, and gadgets) have seen double digit growth which begs the question as to why Cash Plan sales are not growing.
There is an opportunity to build a new, self-insurance proposition that:
The Pluto Platform offers a responsive mobile web app under your brand. Alternatively, you can use our api's to integrate Pluto funcionality into your existing mobile app.
Pluto Module | Cost Range | Age Segments | Procedure Types | Time Horizon |
---|---|---|---|---|
Lay-buy | £1000 - £10000 | 18 to 50 | Elective, cosmetic, specific | 12 months |
Stash | £20 - £25000 | 18 to 70 | All procedures, non-specific | 36 months + |
PayLater | £100 - £1000 | 18 to 35 | Dentistry & Optomtery | Immediate |
VSPRY adopts Google's BeyondCorp zero trust enterprise security model which allows for single sign-on, access control policies, access proxy, and user- and device-based authentication and authorisation. The VSPRY tech stack has 5 inter-connected components:
Our USP is that we make healthcare more accessible and affordable, by integrating healthcare funding solutions, healthcare record management, and healthcare marketplace technology, on a SaaS basis. For licensees of our technology, we remove the capital cost and project risk of building a similar solution internally which for many enterprises is outside of their area of expertise. We bring new sources of revenue, and deliver new customer experiences on a pay-per-user basis, enabling true retail healthcare.
Contact us via VSPRY CHAT or call Mark Hamson on +44 788 425 3641.