The FINANCIAL — Interview with Nino Kobakhidze, head of the GPI Holding Sales Department
Q. What does an Employee Benefit Plan entail?
A. An Employee Benefit Plan is a comprehensive packet providing health and life insurance, in other words, a whole range of social risks: health, life, accident, pension insurance etc.
In developed countries, you can hardly find a company that does not offer its staff a good insurance packet. Moreover, together with health insurance the companies provide their employees with insurance of professional liabilities, accident, life and pension. This is a kind of investment in your staff, in your team, for them to feel comfortable and protected.
Many company managers in Georgia think that their staff’s salary is adequate motivation for good professionals to remain working for them. However recent surveys have revealed completely the opposite. 70% of employed people name additional benefit packets as the main motivation for keeping a job. This includes insurance, transport expenses, pension, etc.
Q. How approved are these insurance programmes in Georgia?
A. Recently Georgian companies have been actively using this tool because they have realized that it is an efficient instrument for creating an attractive working environment.
Local companies are mostly interested in health insurance packets for their staff, because this type of insurance has the highest awareness. In this respect interest has been growing on a daily basis. As of now the corporate insurance service of GPI Holding has been used by more than 1,000 companies and this figure is increasing daily.
There are also many organizations willing to acquire full insurance programmes, including life insurance, personal accidents and pension insurance.
Q. Can you give us more details of your corporate health insurance coverage and benefits?
A. Corporate health insurance packets differ based on the client’s demands. Some of the companies are interested in offering their staff basic packets of health insurance. A basic packet includes emergency treatment, free consultations with general practitioner, emergency medical assistance, some laboratory examinations and tests, urgent and planned outpatient medical service and hospitalization due to accidents.
Obviously the biggest demand is for upgraded packets of health insurance, which cover pregnancy, childbirth, medicines with high limits, dental costs and other medical services. The number of exceptions is minimized in the case of these packets.
There are companies buying accident and life insurance policies together with health insurance. The cooperation of GPI Holding and Industrial Group of Georgia is a clear example of the aforementioned. We have specially developed an insurance programme for 1,200 employees of Tkibuli mine, which includes accidents and life insurance. It took us a few months to finalize this programme together with foreign partners (re-insurance companies). Finally, we have come up with quite an optimal programme tailored to the needs of this high-risk enterprise.
Q. Under the corporate insurance programme do you also cover family packets?
A. Again, this depends on what packet the company buys for its employees. Some organizations are interested in buying health insurance not only for the employees but also for their family members. In cases like these we do our best to be as flexible as possible and to offer tailor-made programmes.
At the same time we offer separate health insurance packets for family members of corporate company staff. In this case we try to provide the most optimal packet with minimum exceptions and to increase limits on medications and other medical services.
Q. What is the rough cost of a corporate health insurance packet per person insured?
A. The price depends on the number of employees in the company and number of health insurance packets obtained by the company. The minimum price for an insurance packet per person starts from 25 GEL.
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