In 2018, the Liverpool city centre-based business sold 69,000 new policies – total policyholders covered during the 12 months increased to 244,589. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool health cash plan provider Medicash is reporting a healthy increase in both new policyholders and premium income.
In 2018, the city centre-based business sold 69,000 new policies and saw premium income rise 7.5% to £27.5m. Total policyholders covered during the 12 months increased to 244,589. Medicash paid out on more than 400,000 claims – a rate of 96.3% – half of which were submitted via the Medicash App.
Finance and IT director, Andy Roberts, said: “We are delighted with these results which reflect the hard work of everyone in the business. 2018 represented our eighth consecutive year of strong policyholder growth and 2019 is on course to be even stronger.
“Maintaining our focus on IT and technology, our app has gone from strength to strength and is now the main way our customers submit their claims to us. As well as streamlining the claims process for our customers, we continually invest in our IT infrastructure which enables us to maintain the lowest operating costs in the industry.
“This allows us to pay a high proportion of premiums back to our policyholders through their claims and ensures the business grows in a sustainable way.”
In March, Medicash acquired the health, wellbeing and safety training provider Health@Work, who also own the nationally recognised Workplace Wellbeing Charter accreditation scheme.
In 2017 the Medicash Board took the decision to donate its full technical account surplus to its Charitable Foundation. This has been replicated again with 2018’s technical surplus of £822,000 being transferred to The Medicash Foundation to help a wide range of health and wellbeing focused charities and projects.
This brings the total transferred to over £1.5m over the last two years. As a result, The foundation has supported projects such as training 100 new volunteers for the Samaritans, heart screenings for young people aged 15 to 35 and a variety of homelessness and food poverty projects.