Five things we learned at REBA’s Future of Health & Protection Summit

The REBA Future of Health & Protection summit in London saw over 100 delegates come together to discuss the opportunities, challenges and solutions facing health and protection benefits for 2025 and beyond.

The invitation-only event held yesterday (13 March 2025) explored global health and risk trends, cost control strategies and addressing data challenges, all with a focus on multinational organisations. 

Here’s five things we learned from the day. 

1. A mantra to remember: relevance, evidence, compelling narrative

Richard Heron, chief medical officer and expert advisor to the World Economic Forum, kicked off the day with a keynote speech on the importance of prioritising workforce health in the context of increased rates of chronic disease and burnout. 

His mantra for securing stakeholder support for health interventions was: relevance, evidence and compelling narrative. 

All interventions must have relevance to the business strategy, demonstrate evidence of effectiveness and provide a compelling narrative to engage key stakeholders, he said. 

He argued data can always point the way, but the narrative is needed to decide the solutions. 

Dr Richard Peters, chief medical officer at Goldman Sachs, echoed this sentiment. 

He highlighted the future health risks of a multi-generational workforce, emphasising the need for tailored wellbeing programmes to address both the ageing workforce and a  workforce living with increased rates of chronic conditions. 

2. Digital services are bringing personalisation, efficiencies and cost savings

Digital health services were a core theme of the Summit, with several providers highlighting how they are shifting their propositions to make health and protection benefits more accessible, personalised and efficient. 

Together these changes will not only help to improve outcomes for employees, but can also bring cost savings for employers.

The shift to digital services can be seen in REBA’s Future of Health and Protection Research 2025, which shows employers are embracing digital tools to access health professionals more quickly. 

More than one-third (36%) said that fast access to clinical review with consultants was having a high impact on workforce health, while virtual/online GPs were also having a high impact in more than a quarter (28%) of respondent organisations.

3. AI is going to transform reward and benefits

Technology disruption from AI is already well underway in the industry, and AI tools have the capability to make benefits professionals’ jobs a lot easier.

Throughout the day we heard how benefits professionals have increasingly heavy workloads, deal with growing levels of international compliance and benefit complexity, soaring medical inflation and rising budgetary pressure.

Delegates outlined challenges in trying to understand how much their organisation spends globally on healthcare and insurance benefits, particularly when they have small teams and a lot of countries “do their own thing”. 

Trying to get data from different regions, particularly in time for insured benefits renewals is “very difficult”.

AI tools can be used to translate and summarise long documents in different languages in real time and provide high-level data views including global benefit costs, renewals, and provider information. 

They can compare benefits across countries and provide insights into cost management and risk management.

4. Be local and global in benefits strategy

Any multinational health and insurance benefits strategy needs a local approach, not just global, delegates heard.

Regions, markets, company structures and employees all vary and benefits professionals need local people on the ground to understand health and insurance benefits needs of employees in that region, communicate what is available and drive uptake. 

For example, employees working in a European city are unlikely to need access to a company doctor in the same way employees working in the Australian outback would. 

“Local HR colleagues often know what the best solutions for their regions are,” one speaker said. “It’s about taking a holistic approach to benefits but with local solutions.” 

5. Prevention will be the foundation of your future health strategy

Throughout the Summit delegates were told about the projected rises in health insurance costs, which correspond with increases in the working age population as well as the number of people living and working with a health condition. 

Although these are not the only factors impacting the cost of insurance, supporting the health and wellbeing of employees can go some way to mitigating the incoming health risks and thus rising medical costs. 

Pascal Prevost, independent expert in risk management, captive management and optimisation of employee benefits, highlighted the need for employers to work more closely with their risk management colleagues to collect and analyse data to help identify risks. 

Many illnesses can be preventable, which is why medical costs can fall into a risk management process. By understanding employee health data and drawing on other information such as public health data, employers can track health risks and take action to mitigate potential future issues.