Insurance startup Bind Benefits just raised $105 million in a Series B funding round to further expand into the fully insured market. CEO Tony Miller sees the company’s health plan product as a way for employers to stay agile while offering insurance in a rapidly changing world.
Customization is something that people are pursuing and adopting in every aspect of their life. One startup is betting this will extend to their consumption of health insurance as well.
Bind Benefits, a personalized health plan provider that recently entered the fully insured market in Florida, has raised $105 million in a new funding round. The same syndicate that ran its Series A funding round in 2018 ran the latest round. The investors were Ascension Health Ventures, Lemhi Ventures and UnitedHealth Group.
The funds are meant to turbocharge this fully insured product that will now be rolled out to more than 30 states by the end of 2021. After announcing it’s entry to the fully-insured market in Florida in September, Bind has filed for approval in Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, and has plans to expand to 30 states by the end of next year.
Founded in 2016, the Minneapolis-based company began by offering personalized health plans for large, self-insured employers. Bind has provided its self-funded administrative services only platform to companies like Best Buy, Lumen and Medtronic.
The plans include core coverage for certain services, such as primary and specialty care, emergency and hospital care, preventive care as well as the option of adding on coverage for services outside of the core coverage at any time. Think of buying coverage for a planned knee-replacement surgery for a few months in the same way a consumer might opt to get HBO for a time to watch Game of Thrones.
While this on-demand aspect of buying health insurance might appeal to people, Bind is also hoping that its emphasis on price transparency — the plan allows members to compare treatment options along with price points — will resonate with consumers. Further, there are no deductibles or coinsurance fees — terms that are inextricably linked to health insurance and represent a universally-felt cause of frustration and worry for consumers.
In a wide-ranging phone interview, Bind CEO Tony Miller expanded on this new vision of health insurance and discussed the future of the employer-based insurance market, among other things.
Source: Medcity News