Beyond the Spreadsheet Checklist: Rethinking Procurement’s Role in International Health Insurance
In procurement, structure and savings are everything. For most categories – office supplies, furniture, travel – the goal is clear: get the best price from a reliable vendor. But when that same framework is applied to international health insurance, the results often look efficient on paper and fail spectacularly in practice. Because this isn’t about buying things. It’s about protecting people.
When Procurement Takes the Lead
Procurement’s rise within global organisations has been a force for good. It brings consistency, compliance, and financial accountability. But when health insurance purchasing sits squarely under procurement – without close partnership from HR and finance – the decision process can become too narrow.
Recently, I met with a large international organisation in Asia to discuss their health insurance renewal. Seven people joined the meeting: representatives from HR, finance, and procurement. The HR director understood the wellbeing challenge. Finance wanted a sustainable premium trajectory. Procurement, new to the organisation, drove most of the discussion – focusing on documentation, vendor credentials, and savings targets.
At one point, the HR director mentioned she had spoken to several peers in their sector who said that, realistically, there were only two firms worth considering for their specific needs: their current broker and One World Cover. Yet, a few weeks later, the procurement team informed us that we hadn’t made the shortlist.
They had defaulted to a handful of global brokers – the ones with thousands of employees and a familiar logo. On a spreadsheet, that looks like due diligence. In reality, it’s often a missed opportunity to find the right partner (because, the large global brokers will be lost when it comes to adequately serving the complex needs of this paricular international organisation).
Why the Usual Playbook Doesn’t Work
Traditional procurement processes focus on cost and compliance. That makes sense when buying commodities, but health insurance doesn’t behave like a commodity. It’s dynamic, data-driven, and deeply human.
- It’s behavioural: how employees use healthcare depends on trust, communication, and cultural context.
- It’s relational: value is created through the partnership between the employer, broker and insurance provider.
- It’s long-term: short-term savings achieved through aggressive tendering or stripped-down benefits often backfire within one or two renewals.
The Procurist recently published an article observing that procurement’s obsession with savings can blind it to the value being destroyed elsewhere in the system. Nowhere is that truer than in health insurance. When you push too hard on premium cost alone, you often end up with weaker data transparency, slower service, and frustrated employees who feel their employer values price over protection.
The Illusion of Savings
The irony is that short-term “savings” are easy to achieve. You can always find a broker willing to undercut another, or an insurer willing to buy the business with an artificially low first-year rate. But those savings evaporate fast if the plan design doesn’t align with actual usage patterns – or if there’s no mechanism for ongoing data review.
Within two or three renewal cycles, premiums surge again, and leadership finds itself wondering why the loss ratio hasn’t improved. Without strong data visibility and governance, there’s no way to fix what’s driving the cost.
What Success Looks Like
Successful organisations treat health insurance procurement as a multi-stakeholder partnership rather than a price exercise. The roles look more like this:
- HR defines success in human terms – wellbeing, retention, employee experience.
- Finance safeguards fiscal sustainability and budget predictability.
- Procurement ensures structure, transparency, and governance throughout the process.
- The broker brings market expertise, data interpretation, and alignment between all three.
This integrated model allows decisions to balance financial discipline with human outcomes. It also prevents the most common pitfall: letting short-term cost considerations override long-term value creation.
How OWC Helps Organisations Balance Cost and Care
At One World Cover, we see this dynamic every day. Whether in internaitonal schools, IGOs, or multinational companies, the pattern is the same: rising medical inflation, opaque claims data, and internal misalignment between cost controllers and wellbeing champions.
Our work is to bridge those gaps through a structured yet human approach. Using our proven blueprint – Diagnose, Redesign, Align, Leverage, Communicate – we help organisations bring data transparency, plan discipline, and staff engagement under one framework.
It’s the antidote to spreadsheet or checklist decision-making: a process that makes financial and human sense.
Beyond the Spreadsheet Checklist
Procurement brings rigour and accountability; that’s essential. But health insurance isn’t about sourcing the cheapest vendor. It’s about ensuring that when an employee – or their child – is unwell in another country, they receive the best care possible without bureaucratic barriers or financial anxiety.
You’re not buying office furniture. Health insurance isn’t another box to tick – it’s about protecting people. And that demands a broader lens – one that looks beyond the spreadsheet.
Key Takeaways
- Procurement’s structure is valuable – but must be balanced by HR and finance leadership.
- Health insurance isn’t a commodity purchase; it’s a people strategy.
- Short-term savings often lead to long-term cost escalation.
- Data transparency and partnership are what deliver sustainable results.
- Brokers like One World Cover help organisations move beyond renewal panic to long-term control and confidence.
To learn more please get in touch: [email protected] or click here to contact us.
