Healthcare provider Simplyhealth has reached an agreement to purchase the UK healthcare business of Groupama Insurances, subject to the required regulatory approvals.
Groupama Healthcare will be rebranded to Simplyhealth following completion of the necessary legal business transfer. It is anticipated this will take between three and six months.
Des Benjamin, chief executive officer at Simplyhealth, said: “For the past ten years, Simplyhealth has been looking to add more value and choice to employers through growing a diverse range of products and services.
“An essential element of this strategy has been achieved through mergers and acquisitions with health providers that share similar values to us.
“By acquiring Groupama Healthcare, we have the opportunity to build greater presence in the small-to-medium business sector and grow market share.”
Francois-Xavier Boisseau, chief executive officer at Groupama Insurances, added: “Over the last five years, Groupama Healthcare has made significant progress in building a private medical insurance business that delivers market-leading customer service, and enjoys the support of brokers and insurers alike.
“However, despite our best efforts we have been unable to achieve the critical mass required to ensure our business consistently delivers the levels of profitability necessary to ensure its long-term success.
“We concluded it would be beneficial to identify a new owner with the scale and resources necessary to offer the support required to build on the progress we have made. Simplyhealth shares our mutual values and our strong focus on the customer.
“We believe [it] will provide an excellent new home for our policyholders and for the staff at Groupama Healthcare.”
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Our initial reaction is extreme disappointment that a quality provider with a focus of claims transparency and exceptional service may disappear with all its values and principles. We can only hope that Simplyhealth incorporates what is good within its proposition.
That said, while at first glance consolidation appears to reduce choice and, by association, the need for independent advice, in reality the opposite is often true. Quite often the larger consolidated business finds itself in a position where it has to offer a greater range of policy options to satisfy its existing customers and the newly acquired customers.
AMII’s experience from previous acquisitions in the private medical insurance (PMI) sector is that the bringing together of two insurer’s product ranges often results in all customers experiencing changes to their contracts within a year or two, either in terms of benefits or policy conditions.
Having access to independent advice from a specialist healthcare intermediary can help guide customers through these changes, ensuring they understand the implications for their cover resulting from minor amendments to benefits, policy wordings, claims processes or pricing decisions. More importantly, a specialist healthcare intermediary will help customers choose the right benefit options to ensure they continue to have they cover they require.