Of employee benefits and impatient managers | The Plum Jam

Hello folks!

Firstly, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate all the love I’ve received for the first edition. You don’t realise it, but you’re making a solid case for my appraisal. Moving forward, feel free to tag or DM my manager Shreyas Achar – that would really help too! 

Jokes aside, I’m unsure how I can reciprocate the love you’ve shown me (and no, I won’t Swiggy/Zomato your favourite food items to your homes), but please know that my heart’s full. I’ve bookmarked your lovely comments to help me through slow days at work.

On to what has transpired since we spoke last.

Up first – The State of Employee Benefits, 2023

What would you tell me if I asked you how much you know about your group health insurance policy? 

Most employers have no benchmarks to refer to when choosing employee insurance.

And what about employees? When I joined Plum last year, I had no idea what these benefits stood for. It was just a "nice-to-have" on my offer letter. 

But, retired parents + terrible insurance experiences = we're going wrong somewhere.

We have an audacious goal of improving the health and financial well-being of all employees in India. The first step towards that was to better understand the landscape of employee benefits in the country. 

Lots of research and efforts later, we built The State of Employee Benefits report to empower employers and employees to make informed decisions when evaluating a policy or a role. 

Download it here.

Next, updates from our product team: 

To be honest, I didn't understand much of what the product team told me. So, we worked with Digvijay S Mahra and Tejas Kinger to produce updates in this simple The New Yorker style story. 

Fully digital claims process:

Reimbursement claims process is long. Longer than this newsletter. We felt it should be easy. Our product team had brainwave. You give hospitalisation and KYC details on our web app. We generate a digital version of your claims form. No more paperwork. No more hassle. Only delight.*

*applicable only to users with ICICI Lombard, coming soon with more insurers.

Automated CD balance alerts:

Admins don’t know when their CD balance is low. I will explain what that is. It’s like a piggy bank to immediately enrol new employees to your policy. Low CD balance means no day-one coverage for new hires. So, we set up alert emails. (Like hydration reminders). Once low balance is identified, we automatically prompt admins to top-up their accounts. 

If this sounds convincing to you, we’ve got more in store. Speak with our experts to learn more about our product. 

Lastly, some BTS of content marketing at Plum

The State of Employee Benefits report took us an entire quarter to build. It also took us 49820 reiterations to arrive at its current, stunning form. (On that note – have you met  Sharvan TG and Praveen Kumar ? They helped design and build the report. Drop them a hello). 

Shreyas, our Head of Marketing, was thoroughly impressed when he saw the project take shape and form — at first. 

But, as we spent multiple Wednesdays giving him ambiguous updates, his patience began wearing thin. Here’s a photo of him seeing through our pretence when we said it's WIP for the third straight week.

If the report hasn’t piqued your curiosity (yet!), here’s a not-so-fun fact: less than 2% of companies provide any cover for outpatient treatments.

Find out how your policy compares by booking a benchmarking consultation with our experts.

That’s a wrap on March’s edition of The Plum Jam. See you next month! 

Regards, Aishwarya Venkatesan .

P.S. – we recently launched the ideal employee posters (inspired by the 80s/90s) to nudge teams to take better care of their health. Check it out here.