Generali Italia insists on corporate welfare and creates Welion, the new company providing services ranging from health to social security, from non-self-sufficiency to flexible benefits for workers, families and businesses, the latter totally decontributed according to the provisions of the Budget law. It's called integrated welfare and it's the business of the moment, which the leading company in the insurance sector in Italy, with its 10 million customers, does not want to miss: “We focus above all on health – explained Marco Sesana, managing director of Generali Italia -. The entire welfare sector is growing, but going beyond the benefits there is a large business margin, especially in health: in this area most of the startups have been born in recent years, and in Italy there is a lot of public spending on health but still little private healthcare, which we believe will grow a lot”.
“While in fact in Germany the majority of employed people have health insurance – added Andrea Mencattini, who will be the managing director of Welion -, in Italy it is not yet the case”. In Italy, only one worker out of three is registered with a health fund (7,5 million people, while 34,2% is registered with a social security fund and even only 750 thousand people (3,3% of the employed) have insurance own non-self-sufficiency in old age, the so-called long-term care. What will the service offered by Welion consist of, which will start from 1 January 2018? “We will go far beyond the reimbursement of treatments – explains Sesana – but we will also provide consultancy, assistance, prevention. Hospital expenditure is very high, so a well-designed welfare service must take care of the client in the round, trying to reduce hospitalizations as much as possible". Also, for example through the preparation, in companies, of special diagnostic corners for routine checks, perhaps non-specialist but still useful for prevention. “Generali Italia, which has 15 employees in Italy, has already set up one at its headquarters in Mogliano Veneto, within the Innovation Park that we have recently inaugurated,” says Sesana.
Then there is the whole universe of flexible benefits, trivially the benefits for employees, better known as provided for and tax-exempt by the Budget law: currently only 21% of companies have a corporate welfare plan, and only 18,3% of SMEs. Corporate welfare is becoming more and more the new pillar of remuneration, which makes it possible to introduce a system of services to support collaborators, with tax advantages for the company and the employee: as Easy Welfare, a partner company of Welion on the operational management of the service, "500 euro of welfare services = 500 euro spent by the employee = 500 euro cost for the company".
Generali Italia's corporate welfare turnover is worth 3 billion euros in premiums between supplementary pensions and health in 2016, with a customer base with enormous growth potential: 1,8 million. Welion therefore aims to offer new customized “non-insurance” services, in the traditional sense of the term, for Generali's 10 million customers in Italy. To do so, he has already set targets: "By 2012 - Sesana said - we will invest at least 50 million in this new activity, with the employment of at least 100 young people in the three-year period. We aim to grow health premiums in particular, which is the sector that seems most interesting to us, by 25%, with an increase of 30 million in the technical result for the group, again by 2021".
Welion will also develop the new services through partnerships with startups: the company has in fact launched a accelerator in collaboration with H-Farm, which will identify international startups (from North America, Israel and Asia) on specific products, as well as another collaboration with GrowItUp, which has already seen the selection of three startups to work with Welion on the development of new services and products in the health and welfare sector. The three startups are: Amiko, which deals with the management of respiratory diseases and allows their monitoring; Neuron Guard, which produces life-saving medical device for cardiovascular disease and brain injury; Nuvap System, an IoT (internet of things) solution that can be installed in working environments and capable of monitoring 26 environmental factors.
