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This is The Friday GAB, a weekly roundup of all the things happening in the group benefits industry. Send me your news and updates to thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com
First Sun Life's systems went dark yesterday as they are experiencing an outage. This affects all app features, plan member and admin sites. Those with Sun Life clients should expect longer than usual wait times at the call center, naturally they will be busier than usual. If they aren't already back up and running as I'm typing this a day after the notice, I'm sure they will be up and running again soon. In product news, Equitable Life's second opinion program provider WorldCare has made a major expansion to their list of eligible conditions. Previously, plan members with groups that added the WorldCare MSO service to their benefits plan were covered for 29 conditions. Starting on June 1, they are eligible to receive a medical second opinion for more than 100 conditions across 16 categories. Visit www.worldcare.com/all-conditions/ for a complete list of covered conditions. Keeping in the product news front, Sun Life has updated their EAP experience. You'll recall that earlier this year they ended their relationship with the Shepell/LifeWorks EAP and transitioned to this program with Lumino and Dialogue. Last for this week, the CLHIA released a statement saying "The CLHIA supports the provision of regulated pharmacy services via virtual care. Read our comments to the Alberta College of Pharmacy in response to its consultation on the draft practice standards for virtual care delivery of pharmacy" You can read it here As the virtual pharmacy space continues to grow, we'll likely see more on this nationally. And that's this week's Friday GAB. This is The Friday GAB – a weekly round up of the happenings in and around the Canadian employee benefits industry.
It's been another light week. I suspect as we get deeper into the nice weather these updates will continue to be short and sweet. In product news, Equitable Life shared that their mental health resources in Homeweb (available to all plan members) and the Employee Assistance Program is getting a lift. EAP partner Homewood, has launched innovative new features in a new platform to help plan members and their families get the support their need. All clients will transaction to the new platform in June. TELUSHealth successfully completed part two of their conference. Both were excellent. I'm a huge fan of this conference. I'll eventually write my recap but in the meantime I live tweeted part of it. The Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey advisory board met last week to begin the discussions and interpretation of the 2022 survey results. Meetings resume next week. I sit on the advisory board in my day job. A tiny sneak peek into the results and my own interpretation is that employee's expectations of their employer is changing. After decades of increasing expectations of work load and productivity from employers, employees are expecting more in exchange. In return they want their pound of flesh, or rather to have their employer help them lose their pound of flesh. Over and over again the survey shows that employees want benefits not offered in the traditional plan, those that are taxable - those that will help with physical health, and healthy diet. The full triangle is still there - physical, mental and financial health. But there was a strong focus on physical activity and diet. The one take away - Now more than ever, companies must redefine their attraction and retention strategies and build a value proposition that takes employees whole lives into account. And that's the Friday GAB. This is The Friday GAB – a weekly round up of the happening in and around the Canadian employee benefits industry.
It’s been a light week with only one update to share. Empire Life has officially moved their travel program to Trident Global Assistance as of May 1. That means plan members who are travelling need to make sure they have the right contact info! That’s it. That’s the update. Have a lovely weekend. It’s the Friday GAB – a weekly round up of the happenings in and around the employee benefits industry in Canada.
I know you have been counting down the minutes for this week’s tea. Especially since there was no Friday GAB last week. But you can only GAB when there’s news and there was no news last week. Did I miss something? You can DM me the news or email me at thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com Shockingly there’s no M&A news this week. A rarity. But there is some partnership news. BPM reported earlier this week that the Benefit Advisors Networks has launched in Canada with Owen & Associates and the Leslie Group becoming the first two firms accepted. In product news RBC launched a group CI product and Sun Life dropped a whitepaper called “Coverage for All” that reminds everyone how important insurance carriers are. Jokes aside, it’s a good read, I’m so proud to be part of the employee benefits industry as our industry does provide significant value to Canadians and is full of excellent caring people. We still don’t know what the proposed national dental care and pharmacare programs will offer. And if I was a bettin’ gal I would put my money on employee benefits remaining a key element in providing access to care. I wrote a bit about it a few weeks ago the wrote some more. It's a news-lite week. If you’ve recently hired and need your new peeps to brush up on group benefits, CPBI Pacific is running an affordable, online session on June 9th. That’s the Friday GAB. This is The Friday GAB, a weekly roundup of all the things happening in the group benefits industry.
It's been a relatively quiet week with only few updates to share. First up in our most consistent category M&A activity. Synex Business Performance announces partnership with ZLC Employee benefits solutions, the benefits division of ZLC Financial in Vancouver. Keeping in partnership news, Sterling Capital has become a member of The TRUE Network Advisors and are the first Non-US benefit based advisory firm in the Network. In product news, PBC is making it easier to keep dollars in plan members pockets with enhanced pharmacy direct billing for members with diabetes. That's it's for this week's Friday GAB. Did I miss something? Email me at thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com This is The Friday GAB, a weekly roundup of all the things happening in the group benefits industry. Send me your news and updates to thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com It’s Good Friday today, I hope everyone has a nice long weekend.
First up, as the election date gets closer every day the current Government in Province of Ontario wants to remind you that they are doing stuff with benefits too. But they won’t tell you anything about the portable benefit program targeted towards the gig economy until after the election. Their interim report is due out in July. The Friday GAB wouldn’t be complete without some M&A news. Dialogue has reached an agreement to acquire London, UK-based Tictrac Ltd. .Tictrac is a SaaS-based provider of a global health and wellness platform that enables healthier living for everyone. The government finally made a decision and announced that it will proceed with Amendments to the Patented Medicines Regulations to provide the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) with new tools to protect Canadians from excessive prices for patented medicines. Health Canada will be moving forward with the implementation of the new basket of comparator countries and reduced reporting requirements for those medicines at lowest risk of excessive pricing. These Amendments will come-into-force on July 1, 2022. However the Government will not proceed with the Amendments related to the new price regulatory factors, nor with the requirements to file information net of all price adjustments. CLHIA is happy about the new baskets. I assume Pharma is happy about no amendments because people like Steve Morgan are not. The good people at myHSA made an exciting announcement that they have entered into an arrangement to partner with AVP Bizflex – bringing their extensive existing business to our online platform. Bizflex is regarded as one of the premier providers of PHSP, Wellness and insured products for Advisors and clients across Canada. Founded more than 25 years ago by Peter Johnson and his team, their meticulous attention to Advisors and clients has contributed to the ongoing success and modernization of one of the most successful HSA platforms built and sold in Canada. Congratulations to all involved! If you’re looking for some benefits material to help you relax this weekend, (ha!) check out the HR ShopTalk episode on benefits trends and why HR should care about them. And that’s this week’s Friday GAB. Hoppy Easter. We’re back after a little break! This is The Friday GAB, a weekly roundup of all the things happening in the group benefits industry. Send me your news and updates to thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com
First up I recently sat with HR ShopTalk to discuss the latest in benefit trends and why someone in HR should pay attention. It’s a quick listen either on YouTube or Spotify In product news, Canada Life finally does something post ClaimSecure acquisition and launches a new product collaboration called… wait for it. . . . SecurePak. I feel like this is a nod to the good ole days with Selectpac. The product is an ASO/Insurance plan mix for groups with 25-200 plan members. The news release doesn’t get into plan specifics, but unless there is a drug max, even with pooling, a strong risk conversation is needed for any group, but especially smaller groups since the health is an ASO funding arrangement. In other product news, PBC is transitioning their virtual care from EQ Care to the Telus Health Virtual Care. Starting Aprl 27 plan members will be redirected to the TELUS Health Virtual Care app. Patent data will be transferred from EQ to TELUS and members will be able to use the same login credentials. You’ll recall that TELUS acquired EQ Care in December 2020. TELUS Health has made another acquisition and adds Sprout Wellness Solutions to the fold. And in other acquisition news, Navacord has also made a big move, this time backing Beneplan It's drug report season! My favorite time of the year. And Express Scripts is first out, they dropped their annual drug report, TELUS will after their host their events in May. Spoiler alert – drug spend is up with fewer claimants. Diabetes and Diabetic supplies continue to drive costs and this category grew by more than 10%. In Legislation – Ontario just tabled a change that would allow anyone in ON to perform traditional Chinese medicine or acupuncture without an official license. Critics are worried that deregulating traditional Chinese medicine could endanger patients by allowing unqualified people to enter the field and practice. If this goes through, I’m not sure what this means for eligibility in benefit plans. And the federal budget dropped yesterday and noticeably absent was any money for pharmacare, but the budget is requiring financial institutions to help pay for the recovery. This section of the budget permanently increase the corporate income tax rate by 1.5 percentage points on the taxable income of banking in life insurance groups above $100 million. Will this mean bank fees, mortgage rates and insurance premiums will increase? The new dental program was listed- the budget proposes $5.3 billion of funding over 5 years and $1.7B ongoing. The plan is to provide dentalcare in 2022 to Canadian under the age of 12 and then expand to under 18, seniors, persons living with disability yin 2021 with full implementation by 2020. The program is income restricted, with no co-pays which means it’s filling the gap in coverage and will have little impact on group plans but could reduce the need for individual insurance plans. Sidebar – keep a close eye on your dental claims this year. Claims are way up compared to pre-covid levels, especially in Alberta, a trend that started in 2021. Both the cost per claim and the number of claims has increased. On the mental health front, the government launched the Wellness Together portal in April of 2020 and this budget has $140M over two years for the portal so it can continue to provide Canadians with tools and services to support their mental health. This portal is a compliment to the free app PocketWell that was launched this past January. And that’s the Friday GAB. This is The Friday GAB, a weekly roundup of all the things happening in the group benefits industry. Send me your news and updates to thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com
Lots of happening this week. Let’s get into it M&A activity continues and was very active this week.
In the wellness space, Loblaw’s continues is expansion in the health space by adding Lifemark to their roster. This will add to its growing role as a healthcare service provider. Within the Loblaw family, Lifemark will join Shoppers. "The acquisition of Lifemark strengthens our ability to support customers' wellness, adding new categories of care” Not M&A but Livelii and Apollo are collaborating to offer self employed Canadians access o digital business insurance. In investment news, Power Corps’s Portage Venture announced 616M close of it’s third fund. This make sit one of the largest early stage fintech focused venture funds in the world. Continuing with the investment news, Curv Health raised $5.1M of seed financing which they will use to build a digital clinic that empowers employers and insurers to directly connect their members with independent healthcare providers. Switching gears, CloudAdvisors officially launched their Bar Score. You can see them next week at the Benefits Canada Tech Insights events where vendors like CloudAdvisors demo their offering. I'm vacationing the week that the Tech Insights is on, so I'm nots sure if I'll attend. Finally in insurer news GSC is doing something with benefits administration and technology. Honestly I’m not sure what. Press Releases tend to be full of information and vague at the same time. You’ll want to speak to your local GSC Account Executive to find out more. They have partnered with CWIBenefits, a TPA, to facilitate this. Wawanesa did something interesting. They are setting up a Customer Review council. The council will be made up of volunteer Wawanesa customers who review and resolve customer concerns. "These people are not industry experts, they are real customers who will “give a voice in a fair, open and unbiased way”. Honestly I find this fascinating. On the one hand, it’s an interesting way to pull customers in, and maybe change the insurer “bad guy” image. It also gives customers a voice that (potentially) makes an impact they can see. On the other hand, this strikes me as free labour. Also, could this backfire? What motivation or unconscious bias will those joining the Council bring to the table? And that's The Friday GAB. This is The Friday GAB, a weekly roundup of all the things happening in the group benefits industry. Send me your news and updates to thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com
Short and sweet this week. First up AON shared they have "identified a cyber incident impacting a limited number of system". They are still assessing and are careful to call it an "incident". AON does not expect the incident to have a material impact on business. GSC has been a busy beaver. They are continuing their expansion endeavors with acquisitions of NKS Health and The Health Depot. Making them the first health an dental benefits provider to own a pharmacy. Interesting to note the activity in the pharmacy space. There are a couple of PBM's that own and operate pharmacies. There have been investments in digital pharmacies like PocketPills and this space has growing competition. Keeping in the M&A news, Empire Life has announced that they have purchased 6 financial services firms. The companies have been amalgamated into one wholly-owned subsidiary of The Empire Life Insurance Company under the name TruStone Financial. The 6 firms are not in the group space, but important to watch as Empire Life certainly is. This isn't the first time we have seen insurers purchase MGA's. That's it for this week's happenings in and around the employee benefit space. Welcome to the first March addition of the Friday GAB, a weekly roundup of all the things happening in the group benefits industry. Send me your news and updates to thegroupadvisorblog@gmail.com
In product updates - Manulife is amending their travel contract. Make sure you open this weeks Manulife news to read the full contract updates or contact your local Account Executive. Sun Life is getting ready to begin the client transition from their current PBM Telus Health to Express Scripts. The transition will happen in Sept 2022. New client to Sun life with effective dates before Sept will also need to transition. Plan members will be asked to download a new drug card form the app or website. New cards will not be proactively sent. More info on any changes to inforce formularies to come at a later date. Also on this note, I saw a message therapist post on Instagram they could not longer direct bill Sun Life. I found this odd - have they also made a change with Telus on practitioner direct billing? Speaking of contracts - do you read yours? This is your friendly reminder to read the contract. I know it's boring. But it's important. iA is expanding their partnership with Dialogue by adding access to Dialogue’s Stress Management and Well Being Program. This is US news but interesting none the less. Teladoc is partnering with Amazon to deliver a First of its Kind Alexa Experience Provides Hands-Free Access at Home to General Medical Care. Audio only to start with video coming later. In more local partnership news, Sterling Capital Brokers is continuing with their M&A strategy with The Benefits Source joining Sterling Capital. Congratulations to both companies! For our friends in ON. The disconnecting from work policy should be something employers are working on. If you're an employer with 25 or more employees, you should be working on putting this written policy in place. As a reminder this must be implemented by June 2, 2022. And that's the Friday GAB. |
