Weatherbys Banking Group, which employs 445 people in London, Wellingborough, and Edinburgh, has teamed up with Equipsme to provide full health insurance and wellness services to all of its employees.
Access to a nurse advice line, physiotherapy visits, private diagnosis, hospital treatment, dental and optical coverage, and a round-the-clock general practitioner are among the benefits. Workers’ families are also eligible to receive coverage.
In addition to the 24 benefits and perks currently offered, including season ticket loans, volunteering days, life insurance, pensions, employee assistance programmes (EAPs), and cycle-to-work programmes, Weatherbys is expanding health coverage to all employees for the first time with this project.
All Weatherbys Banking Group employees are eligible to enrol in the Equipsme health plan following their probationary period. Around 300 have taken up the offer with others having alternative cover.
Weatherbys HR director Carol Davies says: “We want to make sure our benefits package really supports our staff and helps us to maintain a competitive advantage as an employer. We know healthcare cover is increasingly popular. Given the current NHS landscape and the very real challenges in terms of access to healthcare, people are clearly looking for other options to take care of themselves.
“We’re really proud of our benefits package,” added Carol, “and now we can be even
prouder of it. When you’re ill you want to know you can get the help you need to get treated quickly and recover. That’s what our people have with Equipsme. They know they can get a GP appointment, obtain physio treatment and be taken care of. That kind of peace of mind is so important right now and an investment we were really happy to be able to make.
“We searched the market for a reputable provider that could cover everyone at an affordable and sustainable price. What we didn’t want was costs to rise with each claim to the point where the cover wouldn’t be viable for us as a business, or for the employee benefit-in-kind cost to become a barrier to adoption. We tried all the usual suspects and all the big names, but nothing quite ticked all the boxes.
“For us, Equipsme really stood out from the market. The dental and optical cover was particularly important to us, and we liked the link to health assessments through Thriva, building in a preventative function that lets people actually take a proactive approach to their health.”
Equipsme managing director Matthew Reed says: “Businesses like Weatherbys are exactly who we created Equipsme for. We’re delighted to be able to fill that crucial middle ground between a cash plan and PMI, and to be able to support businesses who want to support their whole workforce. Everyone should be able to access health back-up when they need it, from the shop floor to the boardroom. Not only does it improve people’s lives, it improves businesses, too.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with Weatherbys to get cover in place for staff and support the team to make sure everyone understands what they’ve got and how to use it.”
