Put one hand up if you own a business? Now put your other hand up if you’ve ever considered some type of “group life cover” benefits for your staff? Now put both hands down if you’ve delayed your decision because you find the entire offering so outdated?
In our minds, we can picture a football field of business owners standing with starch – stiff arms next to their sides looking towards the sky for some type of divine intervention.
“Bring me anything but a normal life cover pitch, please. The needs of my staff have changed.”
The problem in the South African “Employee Benefits” space is that nothing much has changed in decades. The product offerings are about as inspiring as fax machine technology! It’s 2019 and insurers are still peddling traditional flavoured scoops of ice cream benefits on the back of an “underwriting free” sugar cone which has always existed.
“Mr business owner, would you like a scoop of vanilla, chocolate or bubble gum?”
“You can’t do salted caramel?”
“Nope, just those 3 flavours”
If you have a company with staff members, this is what you can offer them:
- Life cover
- Disability cover
- Funeral cover (which is probably an advance on the life cover)
Yippy, those benefits existed back in the 90s. The “no medical” pitch has always existed so you can’t even throw that in as a unique selling proposition anymore.
So, has anything changed? That’s the real question.
The access to cover needle has probably shifted a little. Group cover was only available to “larger” companies because of the cost of administering the scheme. Let’s just say larger insurers weren’t interested in the small business owner.
That might have been a massive error in judgement considering the SME space will be the wheels that drive the South African economy in the future.
Enter the Fintech companies doing what they do best (creating more streamlined processes and cutting out the middleman). These companies have started to make a small dent in the untapped SME space, mostly by doing things online, but that doesn’t change the fact that the product offerings are the same.
Why hasn’t anyone looked at the needs of the average South African worker and pioneered a range of new insurance product offerings? Oh but we have…
At Stangen we create innovative insurance products to meet current social needs.
Yes, we offer traditional life cover, lump sum disability cover and funeral benefits. Don’t get us wrong, these are important insurance products, but they can’t be the only reason you call your staff in on a Friday afternoon for a chat, right?
Have a look at these additional products we can offer your employees:
- Salary Protection Cover
The biggest risk your staff members face is not earning a pay-cheque. You can talk about life cover benefits until you are blue in the face, but mention an income protection product and now you are talking about a benefit that is tangible.
- Crime Injury
Violent crime causes unimaginable heartache and pain. Our cover pays out if your staff or their family members are killed or disabled as a result of a violent crime. The extra value-add here is that we can also cover your family members.
- Commuter Cover
How many of your employees rely on taxi transport to get to work and back? Our commuter cover product is designed to pay out if your employee passes away or becomes disabled in a commuting related incident. Couple this with a traditional life cover benefit and we are looking at a double payout.
- Critical Illness Cover
Cancer, Heart Attacks and Strokes. Ask any insurer and they will tell you that 90% of their critical illness claims are directly as a result of one of these dread diseases. Knowing very well that each one of us knows someone who has been diagnosed with one or suffered one of the above-mentioned conditions , surely as an employer your responsibility is to provide some type of financial support if an employee becomes critically ill?
Here are 4 reasons why you should contact Stangen for a “staff risk” chat. You can see how much we like the term “Employee benefits”:
- The size of your staff complement doesn’t matter
- We will offer you a set of insurance products that no other insurer in South Africa can match
- We keep innovating on the product offerings
- Our insurance products look to match the socio-economic needs of our policyholders
Why don’t you get in touch with us today?
The Stangen Team
