Kota, the insurance and retirement benefits technology vendor, has announced a new partnership with UK health insurer Vitality. The partnership will extend Kota’s reach within the UK and strengthen its coverage in Europe.
Kota will support Vitality business customers who have adopted group health insurance schemes from Vitality. Pan-European firms will now be able to add the Vitality schemes into the Kota environment. This will enable them to see all the schemes they operate across Europe within a single solution. Kota is already available in 30 countries across Europe. It now claims to be the most comprehensive health and retirement benefits solution for companies operating across the UK and Ireland.
Backed by EQT Ventures, Northzone and Frontline Ventures with a €5 million seed funding round last October, this is a significant announcement. Companies looking to bring together their different benefits partners. It supports benefits, including retirement solutions, international medical insurance, and life cover. Vitality is the latest partner to become available on the platform. With agreements already in place with Irish Life Health, Irish Life, Smart Pension and Allianz.
Luke Mackey, Co-Founder and CEO, commented, “We are delighted to announce the extension of our offering with Vitality as part of our further expansion into the UK and European market. For too long HR Managers and employees have had to deal with frustrating and cumbersome processes to enable easy access to core benefits. We have been working closely with Vitality to deliver a powerful employer and employee experience that changes the game for benefits management. Kota is the first to market with its one-stop hub, which empowers remote and distributed companies to control their benefits and protect their teams in one place.”
Kota delivers platform consolidation
There is now an integration between Kota, Vitality and a list of HRIS solutions commonly used in the UK. The list includes:
- Bamboo HR
- HiBob
- Charlie HR
- Personio
- PeopleHR
- SageHR
- Humaans.io
- AlexisHR
- Workday
- Rippling
- Factorial
- Remote
Kota’s platform combines various benefits. Using the Kota mobile app, employees can now access details of their Vitality Health insurance plan. They can also access the details of other plans in a single place. It provides a gateway to the Vitality Programme, which helps employees improve their health with various benefits and ideas.
The Vitality programme includes advice, benefits and rewards, including activity tracking, health checks, healthy eating suggestions and Mindfulness. For employers, a healthy workforce means less sick days. On average, according to Vitality’s 2023, Britain’s Healthiest Workplace organisations lose 6.1 days due to formal absence.
Liam Kennedy, Director of Key Accounts at Vitality, said, “We’re pleased to be partnering with Kota, making it easier for businesses who have the platform to access and update their Vitality health insurance. Through our insurance, organisations can have access to a wide range of health and wellbeing support to enable them to prioritise and positively impact employee health and the productivity of their workforce, alongside providing access to healthcare when they need it.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Partnering up with Vitality is a significant step forward for Kota and one that the investors should be pleased with. Kota is bringing together benefits platforms in an innovative way. These will allow organisations to access a range of best-in-class solutions within a single application.
It can also provide employees an experience that can deliver a hybrid best in class range of benefits from recognised companies. It will be interesting to see how the company further expands its partnerships across Europe. Also what other benefits and services it offers in the future.
Kota provides an integrated platform between HRIS and benefits providers. Reducing the administrative burden on finance and HR teams for as little as €9/month/active employee. Organisations can manage schemes across Europe with real time enrolment with health insurance and pension providers, simplifying processes and removing costs.
