MetLife's 360Health offering provides holistic solutions to help your members prevent and manage serious illness.
What is MetLife's 360Health?
It's a program that offers services to support people through different phases of their health journey. This may include anything from providing preventative information, understanding the early signs of a condition, through to supporting them when they're unwell and, where possible, facilitating their return to health.
What services are available?
There are five key areas where we provide services to support people's health needs:
1. Prevention – We offer health toolkits and resources that help people look after their health and will hopefully help prevent conditions from developing or worsening. We point people towards screening services and provide advice on staying well through diet and exercise.
2. Early detection – We can provide health risk assessments to look for early signs and symptoms and provide guidance that can help prevent that condition becoming more serious.
3. Return to health – If someone becomes unwell, 360Health provides services to maximise the chances of a return to health. A team of recovery specialists develops a return-to-health strategy that may also include relevant community, online and rehabilitation services.
4. Ongoing care – When someone is critically ill and unlikely to improve, we connect them with tailored community support and services. This includes partnering with cancer organisations to support someone through end of life. We also link people to community services such as Men's Shed for customers experiencing depression and isolation. It's not just about paying claims – it's about how we can help throughout life.
5. Financial support – This isn't about paying a claim. That's already happening. It's about providing financial support for other services. We might offer counselling for a beneficiary when someone has passed away, for example.
What does MetLife hope to achieve with the 360Health program?
We want to help people improve their health and health literacy, including doing what they can to prevent conditions, detect conditions early and if any do develop, get the right support to get back to their previous life as soon as possible. From a fund and employer perspective, it's about providing more for the customer, which facilitates retention.
How does MetLife Australia draw on the company's global expertise?
We worked closely with our global colleagues to develop 360Health. We partnered with our US health team to build out our health toolkits. These toolkits provide a simple, structured way for employers or funds to provide information about serious illnesses to improve health literacy and promote prevention.
Do people see value in getting health information from their fund or employer?
Our Health and Serious Illness Study 2020 suggests more than 55% of working Australians would be likely to use 360Health if it were offered, particularly 18-34-year-olds.
If super funds offered 360Health to their customers, 45% of working Australians said it would likely increase their loyalty to the fund, compared with 35% who said it would increase their loyalty to their employer.
The main reasons people prefer information to come from their super fund are:
- Confidentiality
- Access to 360Health even if they leave their job.
By comparison, the main reasons people prefer to receive information from their employer:
- Easier access
- Employer's duty of care
- Difficulty communicating with their fund
- Perception there would be more fees if the program came from their fund
Email was the number one preferred method of communication, followed by an app, then traditional mail.
Who do people go to for health information?
Our research also shows people looking for reliable health information rank the following in order of priority:
- Internet research
- Asking friends or family
- Seeking professional help
The research also suggests people don't necessarily want to talk about serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease but are open to help to improve their wellness and living healthier for longer.
Regardless of where the information comes from, the insights need to be credible. Given half of Australians don't know if they have insurance, or who their insurer is, it makes sense that this information comes from their super fund.
Find out more about MetLife's new 360Health and what it offers members.
