Dive Brief:
- Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. has selected Towers Watson's OneExchange to provide benefits to its 26,500 full-time employees as of April 1, 2015.
- OneExchange describes itself as a private health insurance exchange that supports all workforce populations, including full and part-time active employees, as well as pre-Medicare and Medicare-eligible retirees.
- Starwood's Jeff Cava says they selected OneExchange in order to offer more choices in healthcare plans and carriers, as well as to continue providing health and productivity programs that help keep benefits affordable and sustain their benefit programs long-term.
Dive Insight:
Starwood came to its decision after exploring the variety of options in the current healthcare landscape, and determining that a private exchange was the logical next move.
"Starting in 2009, we moved to account-based health plans supported by health savings accounts, and invested in programs to improve our associates' health and reward those who take healthy actions. Moving to a private exchange model for delivering health benefits is a natural next step in our health care strategy," Jeff Cava, Starwood's executive vice president and chief human resource officer, said in a press release.
As Business Insurance notes, a number of other major employers have also transitioned to private exchanges over the last few years, including Darden Restaurants Inc., Sears Holdings Corp., and Walgreen Co. The publication suggests the the appeal of private insurance exchanges is that they allow employers to offload the administrative burdens of providing healthcare plans, while also providing employees with more choices.