Strong performance from Sovereign Healthcare
CASH plan provider Sovereign Health Care has announced a strong set of results for 2013, including significant increases in surplus, turnover and reserves.
The organisation also recorded its biggest growth in customer numbers for many years and paid out the highest amount in claims since it was founded as Bradford Hospital Fund in 1873.
Sovereign’s technical surplus rose 10% to more than £1.3m in 2013, while turnover increased by 4% to over £10m.
Sovereign said its “astute management” of the group’s investments saw reserves grow by in excess of 12% to more than £50.5m.
Net customer numbers rose by 5.6%, while Sovereign paid out a record £6.8m in claims to cash plan holders during the year, compared with £6.7m in 2012.
Sovereign’s cash plans aim to make everyday health care more affordable and accessible by paying tax free cash back towards expenses such as dental fees, optical bills, prescription charges and physiotherapy costs.
Policyholders can have a proportion of their treatment expenses refunded up to their cover level maximum within a few days by submitting a simple claim form and receipts received when they made the relevant payments.
The company does not have shareholders and any surplus it makes is reinvested in the business or given by Gift Aid to its charitable trust.
Last year, around £660,000 was donated to good causes. equating to over 6.5% of turnover.
Chairman Dr Bob Dugdale said: “I’m delighted that it was a very successful year for the company on a number of fronts. Once again, our individual health care cash plan was popular with customers, demonstrating that being proactive about health is important, regardless of how the economy is performing.
“This added to an excellent performance in the company-funded market and, while we’re investing more in sales and marketing initiatives, our acquisition cost per policy continues to reduce, year-on-year.”
Russ Piper, Sovereign’s chief executive, said: “I’m very conscious that in these times of austerity, our customers choose carefully how they spend their disposable income, so it’s essential we continue to offer value-for-money with our range of health care cash plans. This needs to be coupled with offering a traditional and sustainable service, recognising that our customers have various preferences in how they wish to communicate and interact with us.
“So I’m delighted that 2013 saw us deliver business results that support the aims of growing our customer numbers and remaining an independent cash plan business. It’s important that we continue to focus on the long-term sustainability of our schemes and the company, and our overall business performance allowed us once again to make an acceptable surplus on our trading activities, whilst retaining the not-for-profit ethos.”
