Employee Healthcare Benefits
UAE group medical, from the employer's side of the table
Your placement intermediary is paid on placement. Your TPA is paid by the carrier. Neither is paid to reduce your cost in the nine months when nothing is being bought.
In short
UAE group medical premium is driven by plan design, network tier, workforce demographics and claims experience. Employers control more of that than they think — design discipline, network selection, claims governance through the year and a well-timed market process. Keel Partners advises employers on those levers on a fee basis. We are not licensed as an insurance broker, intermediary, consultant or TPA and we do not place cover.
Cost drivers
What actually drives your renewal
| Driver | Who controls it | What an employer can do |
|---|---|---|
| Claims experience | Shared | Governance through the year; targeted wellness where claims concentrate |
| Network tier | Employer | Match tier to workforce segments rather than buying one tier for everyone |
| Plan design | Employer | Co-pay, limits, maternity and outpatient design chosen deliberately, not inherited |
| Demographics | Partly | Understood and modelled, not discovered at renewal |
| Market timing | Employer | Start early enough that walking away is credible |
| Medical inflation | Nobody | Anticipate it; do not be surprised by it |
Method
The annual cycle we run
Baseline
Policy, census, three years of premium history, and claims data where the carrier will release it.
Design
Cover by workforce segment, mapped against DHA or DOH mandatory minimums.
Market process
Structured specification and controlled timetable; quotations obtained and placed by licensed placement intermediaries and carriers.
Quarterly governance
Utilisation, claims patterns, network friction, employee experience — written down.
Renewal file
Twelve months of evidence and a defensible narrative, assembled before the deadline.
FAQ
Frequently asked
What is the mandatory minimum in Dubai?
Dubai employers must provide at least the mandatory level of cover set under DHA rules, with the Essential Benefits Plan as the entry-level product for lower-income employees. Abu Dhabi runs its own DOH scheme, and cover became mandatory across the Northern Emirates from 1 January 2025.
Can you get us a better quote than our placement intermediary?
We do not obtain quotes — that is licensed work. We make the process competitive and comparable: a clean specification, a controlled timetable, like-for-like comparison and enough time that walking away is credible. That usually does more than another quote would.
Our renewal is in six weeks. Is it too late?
Too late to run a proper market process well, but not too late to read the claims data, challenge the basis of the increase and set up the following twelve months so this does not happen again.
Do you need our employees' medical records?
No. Aggregated and anonymised data only. We neither need nor want individual medical information, and our terms say so.
Next step
Book a 30-minute briefing
No deck, no pitch. Bring one decision you are stuck on and we will work it through.