Protect Your Employees With Sector-specific Health insurance

If your company is in the mining, energy, oil and gas industry, your employees need sector-specific international health insurance. Why? Because it’s uniquely and competitively priced and caters for your industry’s unique challenges, particularly when it comes to remote locations within Africa.

A real-life medical evacuation story

Imagine this scenario: Executives from your mining company are travelling within Zambia on an important business trip. You get the call that there’s been a car accident, and that two of the four passengers in that car are your staff members. One passenger wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and has been flung far away from the car. The other three are in the vehicle and alive, but in a very serious condition.

What do you do?

In this case study, the client and their employees were insured by Unisure’s Bupa Global Mining and Energy Forum health insurance plan. Within minutes, they were on the phone with Unisure Assist’s Operations Director Cristina Meixieira, who runs the company’s dedicated emergency assistance division.

Even though Cristina and her assistance team are contending with a remote (as yet unknown) accident location, panicked members and a language barrier, they remain calm and start to mobilise their contacts. Years of experience and an unparalleled passion for what they do make them one of the best assistance teams on the African continent. Within minutes, the assistance team has located the scene of the accident and is making calls to dispatch a ground ambulance. They need to get the patients to the nearest clinic to stabilise them, but they’re also thinking ahead.

Knowing that their injuries are likely to be very serious, the assistance team start calling their networks and arranging for a medical team at Livingstone Central Hospital to be on standby. Thereafter they’ll organise the harrowing paperwork that an international medical evacuation requires and get them safely to the Milpark Trauma Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Health insurance cover in Africa is vital

In this story, the executives received the care they needed quickly and recovered from their injuries. In many scenarios like the real-life case study described above, however, the story doesn’t end as well. Remote locations in Africa make emergency response times unpredictable at best. Medical facilities can be limited. When it’s a serious accident, the need for evacuation to a major city, and thereafter evacuation outside of the country, is very likely. Evacuations require an extraordinary amount of paperwork and procedures – and you need the experience and relationships to navigate these processes speedily and efficiently.

Sector-specific health insurance

That’s exactly why sector-specific health insurance like Unisure’s Bupa Global Mining and Energy Forum (MEF) plan can be an invaluable source of support to employers and employees alike. The MEF plan is insured by Bupa Global and distributed by Unisure. It’s specifically designed for companies operating in the mining, oil, gas, energy, petrochemical and supporting industries. Boasting a strong African footprint and a worldwide network of top medical networks and service providers, the team behind the MEF plan understands the continent and the challenges that it often presents in terms of transport and logistics, and also boast their own in-house medical assistance team.

Here are four ways in which the MEF health insurance plan stands apart from the rest:

• It’s competitively priced. Because companies operating in the resources sector have very robust occupational health and safety protocols in place, MEF offers material cost savings on premiums without in any way compromising on the level of care and benefits for members of the plan.

• It offers Africa and worldwide cover. The MEF plan is underwritten by Bupa Global, a leading international healthcare company with a strong international footprint and service provider network. The areas of cover offered are Africa and India, or worldwide, offering members access to top-tier hospitals globally.

• It’s flexible. The Bupa Global MEF plan offers numerous pricing tiers, with overall annual maximum benefits starting from USD 150,000 and increasing to as much as USD 10,2 million. The cover provided by the plan gives members access to top tier hospitals globally.

• It offers 24/7 online support. The MEF health insurance plan is underwritten by Bupa Global, offering members access to Bupa’s world-class Members World app. Via the app, members can submit claims, receive preauthorisation and manage their policies from their smartphones. Members also receive access to the Everyday Resources Employee Support Programme, offering various types of confidential support in multiple languages 24/7 by telephone, email, SMS or online. Lastly, members also receive access to Bupa ‘Global Virtual Care’, a new smartphone app that provides confidential access to international doctors by telephone or video call.

If you would like to know more about how the Bupa Global MEF health insurance plan can protect you and your employees, visit www.unisuregroup.com/mef/ or email info@unisuregroup.com and use ‘MEF Quote’ in the subject line.