Towers Watson launched a simplified global benefit solution designed for the multinational marketplace. The offering, Global Access, allows multinational employers to deliver local-country, pre-packaged benefit programmes that include life, accident, health and disability, with three fixed, benchmarked benefit levels.
Developed in conjunction with leading global insurance carriers, and designed around Towers Watson’s Benefits Data Source survey data, Global Access is aimed at employee populations where customisation is not required in benefit design. Global Access is currently available in more than 30 countries around the world.
Chris Mayo, director, EMEA International Consulting Group, Towers Watson, said: “Multinational companies often struggle with delivering quality employee benefit programmes due to insufficient local-country HR functions, and little or no availability of local benchmarking data on employee benefit packages. This is especially true in the EMEA region where there are numerous countries and where many multinationals have relatively low staff numbers making it difficult for multinationals to justify having dedicated HR capabilities in each market.
“Global Access addresses these challenges head on. We’ve developed a first-of-its-kind, alternative benefit solution that provides employers with the simplicity of a fully benchmarked ‘off-the-shelf’ product that can be implemented within days, while also reducing costs and workload.”
For employee populations where no customisation of benefit design is required, the offering replaces the need for employers to either negotiate or place policies directly with insurance carriers, or having to retain a local broker to do so. In addition, Global Access has very low minimum head count requirements for coverage, and enhanced underwriting features that include higher guaranteed issue or free cover limits, and removal of pre-existing condition requirements for members who have been previously insured.
“Global Access improves transparency and control of local plans and vendors for multinational corporations at corporate and regional levels, and is fully compliant at a local-country level,” said Francis Coleman, director, International Consulting Group and Global Access project leader at Towers Watson. “It’s also easy to operate and offers centrally managed renewals.”
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