Managing employee talent with a key benefit

Income Protection limits income loss if an employee becomes temporarily unable to work due to illness or injury because it guarantees them a monthly income¹. This means that they will still be able to afford the lifestyle they are used to today and continue to save for one to look forward to in the future.  

A key tool in attracting and retaining top talent is having a strong employee benefits package, offering financial protection to employees and their dependents. While a workplace pension aims to provide financial security in the future, being financially secure today ultimately relies on the ability to earn an income. Income protection is a cost effective way of protecting your business’s most important asset – its employees. It provides real financial benefits to both your business and its employees. Offering income protection as an employee benefit can provide two main advantages to your business. 

Attracting and retaining talent In a competitive job market, offering comprehensive benefits like income protection can make your company more attractive to prospective employees. It also helps in retaining current employees by enhancing their job satisfaction and loyalty. 

It can reduce long-term sick pay costs for your business Sickness absence is a considerable challenge for Irish employers, with 64% of employers stating that absenteeism – physical and mental health related – adversely impacts business performance1. One of the primary drivers of this concerning trend is the rising incidence of mental health related issues², which now make up a large percentage of our Income Protection claims³. Income Protection policies often come with support services such as rehabilitation and return-to-work programs, which can help employees recover faster and return to work sooner, reducing long-term absenteeism in the workplace. 

Early intervention works  

At Zurich, our experience has shown that the longer an employee remains away from the workplace, the more difficult it becomes to return. Although most employees want to return to work, it may become increasingly difficult to do so the longer they remain absent. Our Income Protection plan offers access to early intervention services which are particularly effective when the underlying cause is due to mental health and musculo-skeletal conditions, which together make up over 50% of our claims⁴.  

Zurich’s Income Protection offers more than a monthly benefit if an employee gets sick. We proactively want to help you manage employee absence in your business. We work in partnership with employers and can tailor the services we provide to fit specific needs. In practice this means that we adopt an open and flexible approach to our rehabilitation and claims service, with dedicated claims and accredited case managers who are on hand and work together to give you the support you want when you need it.  

We offer a unique approach combining absence management, early intervention, and case management into an integrated service. All you need to do is contact us once an employee is out sick for two weeks. Based on the nature of the illness we will tell you if we are able to help or whether it is better left to the employee’s doctors.  

When we believe our Early Intervention services can support your employee’s wellbeing, we will assign a case manager who will conduct an initial assessment, either in person or remotely. They will build a personalised plan, which may include physiotherapy and psychological support, which Zurich can help pay for.  

Early Intervention can be highly beneficial for employer and employee statistics show that 74% of employees referred for Early Intervention returned to work within 85 days of entering the programme⁴. 

However, there is significant evidence that the longer it takes to notify the claims team, the more difficult it becomes to achieve a sustainable return to work – the employer holds the golden key to success!  

By offering Income Protection, you not only support your employees’ financial security but also invest in the long-term health and productivity of your business. Our Group Income Protection is flexible to a company’s needs and can make a real difference to a rewards package. 

Sources:

¹Please note that most policies will have a deferred period. This means that a benefit will only be paid once the employee’s absence from work has lasted for at least a certain number of weeks.  

²Bourke, Roper & Lenihan (2023). Healthy Workplace Ireland: A Survey of Mental Health & Well-being Promotion in Irish Firms. Cork: Cork University Business School, University College Cork.  

³Zurich Life, 2024.  

⁴HCB Group, 2024.