Sun Life Financial Expands Stop-Loss Cost-Containment Program
The U.S. division of Sun Life Financial (NYSE: SLF, TSX: SLF) announced today that its Group Division is expanding its industry-leading Stop-Loss cost-containment program with new features. The company is also renaming the program to SunResourcesSM to reflect this expansion.
“Through SunResources, we help employers lower their total cost of health care,” said Christopher Brown, Vice President, Stop-Loss Products. “With the new services we are adding today — along with more in the near future — we can save our customers even more.” Sun Life Financial is one of the nation’s largest providers of stop-loss insurance, which protects employers who self-fund their employee health care plans against unexpectedly high claim costs.
SunResources works by linking employers to money-saving vendors and services that can lower the cost of employee health care. SunResources targets employers’ biggest challenges, such as hospital bills, out-of-network charges, chronic conditions, and major procedures like organ transplants and kidney dialysis. It is available to Sun Life Financial’s Stop-Loss customers and their Third Party Administrators (TPAs) at no additional cost.
“When we developed SunResources in the early 1990s, it was one of the first innovative programs in the stop-loss industry,” said Brown. “Now, we are strengthening the program and adding new features, making it the premier cost-containment program of its kind.”
The first enhancement is the addition of several new services. The first service, announced last year, is United Resource Networks’ transplantation program. This gives Sun Life Financial’s customers access to a national network of more than 100 Centers of Excellence transplant facilities. Next month, Sun Life Financial will add programs for kidney dialysis and congenital heart disease, which are historically high cost areas of health care.
The second enhancement is a new, innovative vendor credentialing process. SunResources vendors will be actively managed, with their performance and savings tracked on an ongoing basis. This rigorous process will ensure customers receive the best service from top-quality vendors. And in the future, Sun Life Financial will make customer savings and utilization reports available, enabling employers to see the positive impact that their stop-loss insurance is making on the bottom line.
The program’s new name represents a turning point, signifying the importance of these enhancements that are taking place. It also more clearly describes what the program does — provide employers with valuable resources that complement their stop-loss coverage.
Other aspects of the program will remain the same. As before, Sun Life Financial’s staff of case managers will continue to work with employers and TPAs to creatively tackle claim problems to minimize costs and ensure the highest quality of care. They act as consultants, helping identify opportunities for savings and suggesting alternatives that can lower medical bills.
“Our strong case management, along with our vendor relationships, can make a real difference in claim costs. SunResources can help lower an employer’s total cost of self-funding,” said Brown.
About Sun Life Financial
Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of wealth accumulation and protection products and services to individuals and corporate customers. Chartered in 1865, Sun Life Financial and its partners today have operations in key markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China and Bermuda. As of December 31, 2006, The Sun Life Financial group of companies had total assets under management of US$374.7 billion. Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF.
For more information about Sun Life Financial’s U.S. Group Insurance products and services, visit www.sunlife-usa.com.
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