Insights: Why good employee health is good business

The business protection opportunity

It can be easy to think of business protection as a highly complex and niche area, and therefore difficult to get in to.
However, the business protection gap in the UK has been estimated at £1.35trn (3). One of the reasons for this is the perception that advisers do not get business clients through the door.
It is important to remember that a business client does not need to have hundreds of employees, or millions of pounds in turnover to be able to benefit from having business protection in place.
There were more than 4.9 million business registered in the UK as of 2013, with 99.9% of these being classed as small businesses, with one to 249 employees (4), so there is every chance that you could be overlooking a highly lucrative source of income.

An employee benefits package without the large costs

Recent product launches in the market mean that there are a now business protection products on the market that come with an integrated health and wellness solution for employees. Therefore, embedding a healthy and comprehensive employee benefits package doesn't have to be costly and is no longer out of reach for SMEs.
These products give your business clients the opportunity to build a culture of health improvement, which can result in lower costs, improved performance and overall business success, alongside offering financial protection against the impact of sickness.

Justin Taurog is managing director of sales and distribution at VitalityLife
To find out more about VitalityLife's Business protection range with Vitality Optimiser, please visit vitalitylife.co.uk/adviserBP.

Sources:
1 ONS, sickness in the labour market data, Feb 2014
2 Britain's Healthiest Company results, 2015
3 yourbusinesscommunity.co.uk, 2015
4 ONS, business population estimate for the UK, 2013.