Range of health and wellbeing benefits for group risk clients was originally available until end of 2020
Canada Life introduced its WeCare offering to its online CLASS platform at the start of May, not long after the UK went into its first lockdown.
The group risk provider has announced that the benefits, provided by Teladoc Health, will become a permanent feature for businesses insured under its schemes after initially announcing it would run until the end of the year.
Brought in to help SMEs at no extra cost, the range of virtual services includes health, mental health and wellbeing support alongside virtual GP consultations, second medical opinion services, smoking cessation support, mental health support, life event counselling, burnout prevention, diet support and get fit programmes.
The services can be used by both employees and their family members, whether they are insured under a policy or not.
Tim Stoves, managing director, protection, Canada Life said: "We pride ourselves on being able to adapt quickly to the emerging needs of our customers and I'm delighted that we've been able to make WeCare a permanent part of our service following such positive feedback from users and advisers. We knew that people would need to access health and wellbeing services differently during the coronavirus lockdown and it's clear that as behaviours have adapted so the need for virtual services will continue as we enter in to a second national lockdown
"By looking at our data we can see the popularity of virtual GP appointment requests which reinforces the significant shift in the way people access health and well-being services in such a short space of time. This is supported by the popularity of other services available on WeCare including get fit programmes and mental health support, which evidences the need to provide holistic and comprehensive support, in an accessible way."
According to Canada Life, recent WeCare usage data shows virtual GP appointments are the most popular service accounting for 47% of requests, followed by 20% of users selecting a get fit programme and 13% seeking mental health support.
Almost two-thirds of users were able to seek assurance from a WeCare GP, resulting in them not needing to leave their home, the group risk provider said.
