Are you ready? It's time for the tea. Every Friday I'll be here sharing the latest updates from the employee benefits industry.
Send your group benefit industry updates to thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com! Phew! it was a busy week. I think everyone saved their announcements for this week. In particular Wednesday of this week. Merger and Acquisition activity Always a busy category. This week we had a big one in the Virtual Care / Digital Health space with Maple acquiring Wello. Next we have Navacord with three new acquisitions People Sun Life was excited to announce Marie-Chantal Cote as their new SVP Group Benefits. Product Many insurers have updated their COVID test requirements for STD along with the waiting period (back to standard from day 1) Manulife has ended their partnership with HR Downloads and their value add HR Solutions Product will no longer be included in plans. Current plan sponsors will have access to this product drop off at the end of March. GSC is offering one free therapy session via InkBlot (who they own) for women. I may be biased, but I like this. The follow up rate is also only $75 which is much less than what most counselling sessions cost. Health Canada approved psychedelics for medical use. This is good news for clinics like Field Trip. Maybe some insurers will build coverage for these clinics. Telus has jumped onto the virtual pharmacy train made popular by PocketPills SSQ has launched a new drug cost tool that lets members determine their drug coverage and compare prices at near by pharmacies. Sun Life has launched Surrogacy benefits and fertility services benefits. Equitable Life is expanding their already strong digital new group process and is piloting an online group benefits application with full rollout coming later in the year. Not sure how to categorize? League is officially a unicorn! La Capital will begin their transition into the Beneva brand next week and SSQ will follow later. Much later. So business as usual at SSQ. If you're looking to learn, or just need CE credits, Connex has a great session coming up in Feb that I'll be participating in, I also saw Empire Life has an industry outlook session next week and Equitable Life has a CE credited webinar in Feb. I'm sure you can get links to register from your local Account Executive. And that's the tea! Comments are closed.
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