Allianz Worldwide Care International Health Insurance Plans for Intergovernmental Organisations
Allianz Worldwide Care’s (AWC’s) new plans are, as the name suggests, aimed at intergovernmental organisations (IGOs). In fact, the plans are aimed at IGOs with between 100 and 300 members. The new menu style plans offer:
Three interchangeable levels of cover to suit different budgets and needs.
A dedicated IGO support team.
Simple and convenient pricing structure.
Access to 750,000+ medical providers worldwide, with widespread direct billing.
Cover provided on a Medical History Disregarded (MHD) basis.
24/7 medical advice.
Superior service and response times.
24/7 multilingual helpline and emergency assistance.
A simple, fast and easy process for submitting medical claims via the My Health app.
AWC says that all fully completed medical claims are processed within 48 hours. The three cover levels are called IGO Bronze, IGO Silver and IGO Gold. Maximum annual benefit on the core plan varies form €250,000 (IGO Bronze) to €1m (IGO Gold). To that, customers must add one each of outpatient; optical; dental, and health and wellbeing covers but can choose which level of cover (Bronze, Silver or Gold or 1, 2 or 3 for dental and optical covers) for each benefit. So, an IGO could choose IGO Bronze cover with outpatient IGO Silver; IGO Optical 1; IGO Dental 1, and Health and Wellbeing Gold cover for example. Plans can be denominated in Euros, GBPs, USD or CHF currencies. A choice of geographic areas is also available under the plans.
The plan is underwritten by AWP Health & Life SA, based in France, and plans are administered by AWP Health & Life Services in Belgium.
Comment: IGOs often don’t have the HR resources other organisations do, while employees working abroad can be subject to various stresses not common in other jobs. AWC has a lot of experience in this sector (over 50 years, it says) so has made this suite of plans simple to operate and ensured that employees can get quick and easy access to help when they need it.
Being able to mix n match non-core cover levels also makes the plan more versatile than some other option routes allow, even though, a tad confusingly, optical and dental cover options are numbered rather than using the bronze, silver and gold descriptors on the other benefits. While we’re being niggly, the plan is also in the running for this year’s longest product name too! Those are (very) minor criticisms though and won’t bother many customers or brokers.
The international private medical insurance (iPMI) market is now segmenting customers much more than before and this plan illustrates the value of that. Clearly, the market is limited but, if you have clients who work for or are IGOs, this plan could well appeal to them.
Plus points: iPMI targeted at the needs of IGOs; Easy to buy and administer; Mix n match approach to non-core cover offers maximum versatility; Good help services for employees; Choice of three cover levels; AWC has a strong global presence.
Not so plus points: Only available to IGOs; Targeted at SME-sized IGOs only; Quite a long product name!
Website: http://www.allianzworldwidecare.com.
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 7. Overall: 8. Gold
Tags: iPMI, Allianz Worldwide Care