Cigna Healthcare is launching a product that bundles supplemental health benefits directly into high-deductible health plans.
The product, Medical with Smart Coverage, will be available in 2027 for employers with 500 to 2,999 employees offering qualifying HDHPs. Eligible employees can receive up to $7,000 in supplemental cash benefits when they’re hospitalized or diagnosed with a serious illness to be used for medical expenses or costs like transportation and childcare.
The product is backed by Cigna’s ability to auto-match medical claims to supplemental payouts through a platform called Simple File Sync Plus. When a medical claim triggers a supplemental benefit, the system processes the payment without the employee filing a separate claim.
“Oftentimes, we’re going to be able to identify that claim and get it paid for you without you having to be involved at all,” Paul Virtell, president of supplemental health at Cigna Healthcare, told Becker’s.
Mr. Virtell said many employees who have supplemental coverage never file claims because they forget they have it or find the process confusing. According to a Cigna-Ipsos survey, nearly 60% of Americans say they aren’t financially prepared for a health event, and 44% have spent more than $1,000 out of pocket following a diagnosis, injury or hospitalization. Fewer than one-third understand supplemental benefits can be used for everyday expenses.
“We want to give financial confidence to those who want to enroll in a high-deductible plan, because at the end of the day, they are going to have some out-of-pocket expense if they have an unforeseen illness that they couldn’t have planned for, or an accident that they couldn’t plan for,” Mr. Virtell said. “So we want to be there to make sure we’re providing financial support and make it easy for them to deal with that unexpected health event.”
Cigna described the new benefit as an “industry-first” and said it plans to expand it to more employers and geographies in 2028.
“Ultimately, the more integration we can create, the better for the member, the better for the employer,” Mr. Virtell said. “I would suspect that other medical carriers are probably already working towards further integration and wouldn’t be surprised if they were to follow shortly after us.”
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