Best health insurance provider: Westfield Health

This non-profit making health cash plan provider and winner of the health insurance category for the second year running, is not a company that rests on its laurels. Since scooping the 2004 award, Westfield has relaunched its two core products - the Good4You Plan for individuals and the Advantage Plan for company employees - to include new and improved benefits.

On the technology front, it has installed a new web hosting infrastructure at www.westfieldhealth.com with an after sales support area, and it is believed to be the first cash plan provider to launch a mobile phone text messaging balance enquiry service for policyholders.

Over the year, it has put in place a raft of initiatives, including a major new training programme for its employees and a new system for evaluating customer feedback, to improve customer service across the board. It has also rewritten its policyholder literature to make sure its plan benefits are presented in a clearer, more readily understood way and it has updated its formal complaints procedure.

Sales and marketing director Jill Davies feels no need to be coy or modest about Westfield's achievements to date. "Westfield has continuously punched above its weight in the cash plan sector, gaining a well deserved reputation as a market leader in the development of innovative new products and our standards of customer care," she says. "Individuals look at cash plans as a way of taking a proactive approach to their health and to help them pay for those areas of healthcare which are not routinely covered by the NHS. They are attracted to Westfield for our simple, good value plans, backed by outstanding customer service. Our own customer satisfaction surveys show progressive improvement."

Since starting out in 1919 as "a penny in the pound scheme" for policyholders in the Sheffield area, Westfield has become a UK-wide organisation with over 340,000 policyholders. It's now the UK's second largest provider of health cash plans, after market leader the HSA Group, with approximately 11% of market share and has doubled its number of policyholders in the last five years.

With routine healthcare no longer freely available on the NHS, and alternative treatments becoming increasingly popular, sales of health cash plans are on the rise. Their main attraction is that, for relatively modest premiums, they pay towards the cost of routine optical and dental treatment, chiropody, health screening and alternative treatments such as acupuncture, homeopathy and osteopathy. They also provide cash payments towards expenses during a stay in hospital. Where many cash plans typically pay half the cost of treatments, Westfield offers 100% of the cost back on may of its benefits.

Traditionally regarded as the poor relation of private medical insurance, cash plans are becoming increasingly popular as more people pay their own medical costs and turn to alternative treatments. Even though payouts are relatively low, many people with the usual range of ailments who perhaps wear glasses and use a private dentist are able to get more back in benefits from a cash plan than they have paid in premiums.

As a result more than seven million people are now covered by cash plans, either paid for themselves or through employer-offered schemes. At Westfield, almost one-third of policyholders pay premiums direct while the remaining two-thirds come to the company through their employment, either in employer-paid schemes or paying the premiums through payroll deduction. The biggest area of growth for Westfield is the employer-paid market where it provides plans in partnership with the likes of HSBC, Boots, HBOS and the British Chambers of Commerce. More than 25% of Westfield's policyholders now have their premiums paid for by their employers.

After policyholder research, Westfield has introduced changes to its Advantage and Good4You plans including improved benefits on the most popular dental and optical cover. In keeping with the government's move towards encouraging the public to take more responsibility for their own health, it has also introduced new benefits including special rates for health club membership and the first ever GP telephone consultation service to be offered by a cash plan.

What makes Westfield stand out? According to Jill Davies it's the company's "treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself" ethic. "In a world where call centres are synonymous with automation and frustration, Westfield has a caring culture and a determination to help," she says." Everyone from the chairman down to the staff on the front counter make themselves available to deal with problems as they arise. This friendly, down-to-earth and professional approach inspires loyalty and widespread appreciation of our products and services from our policyholders."