Discovery Holdings of South Africa has released short term plans as it complete the acquisition of Standard Life Healthcare, boosting PruHealth to one of the UK's larger private medical insurance (PMI) providers.
The provider now gives cover to 700,000 lives and has a market share of 11%. It is now the fourth largest UK PMI provider.
The company says full integration will roll out over the coming months and a product suite building on the best of the current PruHealth range and the range previously offered by Standard Life Healthcare will be launched later this year.
There will be no changes to broker arrangements during this time: Existing policies will not change; Broker and customer service will be provided as before; Account management and sales support structures across PruHealth and products previously offered by Standard Life Healthcare remain as they were; Customers will be contacted and made aware of any planned changes as policies are due for renewal
Neville Koopowitz, previously CEO of Discovery Health, has been appointed CEO of PruHealth, and has transferred to London from South Africa.
Koopowitz says: "Our vision is to be the best health insurer in the UK and to excel at everything we do. The combined business will result in a complementary product range and assets in distribution and service as well as scale in negotiations to benefit clients".
"Brokers are core to our strategy and we are firmly committed to this channel and plan to make further investment in broker distribution going forward."
For previous Standard Life Healthcare policies a transitional brand which refers to "PruHealth Previously Standard Life Healthcare" will be used for 12 months. All other communications will be transitionally branded for four months. After this period all material will be branded PruHealth.
Advisers and their clients who visit the Standard Life website will be automatically redirected to www.welcometopruhealth.co.uk for information on Standard Life Healthcare.
