Denplan Wellbeing, Dental, May 2013
Denplan offers a range of dental products (as well as its best known capitation plans), with its six product Wellbeing range for employers aimed at encouraging employees to visit the dentist regularly. Lowest cover is provided by Denplan Key, which pays for worldwide dental injury/emergency treatment and a dental emergency helpline only. Elementary cover adds 100% reimbursement up to NHS limits and is designed for those with an NHS dentist and to cover those charges.
The Essential and Extensive versions are available in standard or ‘Plus’ versions and add increasing levels of cover, paying maximum annual benefits per member of:
Benefit Essent’l Ess’l Plus Ext Ext Plus
Routine examinations £50 £40 £100 £100
Hygiene treatments £70 £60 £140 £120
Dental x-rays £40 £40 £80 £80
Restorative treatments
80% of cost, up to £200 £1,000 £400 £2,000
From April 2013, the hygiene treatment limits for Essential and Extensive (but not the Plus versions) have been increased to the above figures and apply to all new and renewing plans. Maximum benefit is £2,300 per policy year.
Other benefits include dentist call-out fees, hospital cash benefit and mouth cancer cover. A range of payment options is available and plans can be company paid, part of a flex scheme or paid by employees through salary deduction. Plans have some exclusions and plan limitations.
Other changes to Denplan’s range from April 2013 include removing the annual limits on the worldwide routine and restorative dental treatments under the Denplan Lucent plans.
Comment: Hygienist fees are not insignificant, so increasing these limits will be welcomed. Overall though the changes are fairly minor and we wonder why Denplan did not at the same time increase the hygiene limits on the Essential Plus and Extensive Plus plans.
Plus points: Good value; The hygiene benefits have been increased on the Essential and Extensive plans; Improvements to Lucent range too; Denplan is the market leader and is now back in a mutual’s hands (having been part of AXA for some years).
Not so plus points: This is quite a big range to get to grips with, especially for the occasional dental adviser; It does seem odd to increase the hygiene benefits on Essential and Extensive plans but not to extend that to their plus versions too (one for the next update?).
Website: http://www.denplan.co.uk/companies
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 6. Overall: 7.5. Silver.