Make work more rewarding with healthcare cover

• Employee retention. Including small business health insurance in your employee benefits package can be a great way to retain your top team members. The Association of British Insurers commissioned a survey of 2,005 people in 2023 and found 57% saw health insurance as a key part of an employee benefits package.¹
• Recruitment incentive. Small business health insurance can also be a great incentive to help attract new team members to your business. The Financial Times (2023) argue that it can help you persuade top-level new recruits to commit to your business.²
• Flexible medical appointments. Small business health insurance also comes with the added benefit that medical appointments can often be at a time and place that works for you, so you can minimise the impact that they have on your day
• Workplace wellbeing. Small business health insurance can also be beneficial to overall workplace wellbeing as our 24/7 health support line provides your team with access to health information when they need it. So you can rest assured that should a member of your team have a question about their health, our health practitioners are at the end of the phone to support them
• Productivity. Employee wellbeing can, in turn, have a number of benefits for a business including improved productivity. Chang (2024) found that for optimal performance, employees must feel safe, secure and maintain good mental health.³

Sources and references

¹ABI, 2023

²The Financial Times, 2023

³Chang, R. (2024). The Impact of Employees’ Health and Well-being on Job Performance. Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences. 29, [Online]. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380092454_The_Impact_of_Employees'_Health_and_Well-being_on [Accessed 13 February 2025].

Our small business guide to health insurance covers lots more FAQs, you can read it here. 

How does health insurance impact tax?

When providing private health insurance as an employee benefit to your team, it is considered to be a benefit in kind. Your employees will therefore need to pay tax on the benefit amount.
At the end of each tax year, employers have to complete a P11D form for every employee who has received expenses or benefits in addition to their salary (this doesn’t include routine business expenses and benefits like travel and company car fuel).

Read our blog post to find out more about how private medical insurance impacts tax

How much does business health insurance cost?

At AXA Health, we think that the best way for you to get the healthcare cover that’s right for your business and your budget is to let you build your plan yourself. That’s why we offer a range of healthcare cover options, so you only pay for the cover you need^.

As well as tailoring your cover and choosing only the options you need, we also have a number of cost saving options available so you can look after your people whilst still keeping an eye on your bottom line. 

Find out more about our cost saving options.

^If you’re buying healthcare cover for 1-2 people only, you will need to include either the Treatment option or Diagnostics Only option in your plan.

What are chronic conditions?

Small business health insurance, in most cases, covers the cost of private treatment for new acute conditions that develop after your plan has started (depending on the details of your plan). Chronic conditions generally aren’t covered on most small business health insurance plans.

A chronic condition is a disease, illness or injury that has one or more of the following characteristics:

• It needs ongoing or long-term monitoring through consultations, examinations, check-ups and/or tests
• It needs ongoing or long-term control or relief of symptoms
• It requires your rehabilitation or for you to be specially trained to cope with it
• It continues indefinitely
• It has no known cure
• It comes back or is likely to come back

What is a pre-existing condition?

A pre-existing medical condition is any disease, illness or injury that:

• You have received medication, advice or treatment for in the five years before the start of your cover, or
• You have experienced symptoms of in the five years before the start of your cover whether or not the condition was diagnosed.

The process of underwriting determines whether pre-existing medical conditions are covered on your plan. The underwriting option that you choose can affect the cost of your healthcare cover. 

More information on the process of underwriting can be found in our Small Business Guide to Health Insurance.

Want to find out more?

If you still have questions, we've created our Small Business Guide to Health Insurance. The guide covers off a number of frequently asked questions, including:

• What underwriting options are available and what can’t I claim for?
• How does private health insurance impact tax?
• How does the claims process work?