Destiny Health is a health insurance company founded on a revolutionary concept- putting its members in control of their own health care dollars. The Destiny Health plan design motivates active participation in health care and rewards the member behavior changes necessary for a healthier lifestyle. The Destiny Health model is a health insurance solution for those who seek greater value, superior choice, outstanding service and comprehensive coverage. Launched in May 2000, The Destiny Health Plan currently has more than 57,000 members and 1,300 employer groups enrolled in Illinois.
The company's Comprehensive Consumer-Driven Healthcare™ model is structured to change the way members think about and use their health insurance benefit dollars. The product uses incentives to engage consumers to make smart health care decisions. For employers, this model is proven to control rising health care costs through lower premium increases. Destiny Health's experience with this plan shows that premium increases for renewals are consistently lower than the national average, which for small- and mid-size companies is running between 14 and 30 percent. In addition, clear evidence shows that participants change their behavior in positive and cost-effective ways-without forgoing necessary treatment.
The Destiny Health model goes beyond the limitations of first-generation consumer-driven products by leveraging six essential principles:
- Empowers members where care is affordable and more controllable
- Provides comprehensive coverage for less controllable events
- Provides coverage that is good not only for the sick, but also for the healthy
- Enhances wellness and promotes healthier lifestyles
- Equips members with relevant, real-time information
- Offers flexibility and choice
Destiny Health's innovative plan design is patterned after the success of its parent, Discovery Health, an international health insurance company with more than 1.6 million members and 10 years experience.
Destiny Health is headquartered in Chicago (Oak Brook), IL.
Financial Ratings
Guardian and Destiny Health have formed an unprecedented alliance. The two companies will jointly market and sell The Destiny Health Plan in Illinois, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Maryland, with plans to expand into additional markets nationwide.
To learn more about Guardian in alliance with Destiny Health, click here.
AM BEST Ratings: Destiny Health is not rated
Weiss Ratings: " D" - weak
It's not my job to give a company a better grade than a rating service, but this is a company that is very liquid, has a great partner with Guardian, one of the strongest insurance companies in the US, and is a pure play in health insurance. See the Weiss Report by clicking here.
Information last updated on 8/19/2005
Plan Features
This commentary section of our web site is based solely on the opinion of Castle Group Health.
Destiny is a very interesting company built on a unique concept. The Concept is fantastic. We aren't thrilled with the way it's implemented. Our lack of excitement is probably because Destiny has an approach and design that assumes that an employer is excited to offer healthcare benefits. We don't look at health insurance with an 'Amway' excitement. We believe that pricing of health insurance plans is a necessary evil. A faux happy face with perks just aggravate people who are trying to control these out of site costs. Wouldn't you just like to punch a gas station that charges $3 per gallon and then offers you free dinnerware and smile. Save the perks, Save me Money! Destiny rewards employees who follow a healthy lifestyle with perks like Movie or even Airline tickets. We find the concept of Rah-Rah implausible for businesses with less than 25 employees. That said, Destiny believes firmly, as we do, that the only way to control healthcare costs is to incent people to be better consumers. Additionally, Destiny is the product that several carriers have attempted to copy.
To a great extent we, the consuming public and the industries that delivered insurance and health costs to us, are self-responsable for conspicuous consumption of healthcare. There are way to many consumers that don't care what the cost of their actions are. Most employers bemoan the employee that doesn't take care of themselves, doesn't diet or exercise, and takes all the Advertised on TV, drugs. Destiny plans are designed specifically to address those types of consumers and penalize them to an extent.
Destiny is the originator of the concept. Their plans predate the legalization of HRA's and HSA's. Their management was incredibly bright in designing a plan that took conspicuous consumption into account when designing a plan. Super-Big Applause to Destiny on their foresight. Where we have a problem with Destiny or any other canned HRA designed product is that one size fits all. Additionally, the common theme with canned products is that the employer does not get to participate as much in the savings.
Employers are faced with the ongoing dilemma of wanting to provide health insurance, make employees happy, and pay decent wages. An employer is also tacitly blamed by employees each time prices go up or benefits go down. An employer who takes the path of an HRA or Canned HRA/HSA product is going to receive an increase of questions and complaints from people who think that they are getting gypped. An employer sets the tone and leads his/her employees by explaining how this works in general. We believe that Employers MUST have the freedom to self-design how the product works. We also don't believe that healthcare costs should adopt a structure that gives one family a free airline ticket while another is struggling to pay their out of pocket expenses. The perks program from Destiny is a nice thought, but we believe can add additional complication to the simpler concept.
We don't believe that the poor financial strength ratings issue is a critically important component in this equation. There are other reasons that explain why we currently give Destiny a "not a top choice" opinion. Even though Destiny is not a top choice, there are some situations where Destiny could get a favorable nod. They are very customer friendly. They use a very good PPO network. For those that don't have a well informed or extensively licensed agent, Destiny might edge out Assurant's or Humana's similar product.
Underwriting & Renewals
Since DESTINY is not a top choice from our agency, we don't have a great deal of personal experience in their group underwriting. Most of the following information is gathered from sources that we believe to be reliable but cannot personally guarantee their accuracy.
DESTINY has gone from a very company with questionable financial's to a potential powerhouse with their joint agreement with Guardian Insurance. With Guardian's influence and experience, DESTINY has taken greater interest in being profitable, and thus more stable. Their underwriting is very similar to Aetna's small group underwriting in that there can be some real defensiveness with smaller groups. Destiny's system is built with more expensive setup costs and less members to spread that cost across, but they are competitive with medium sized small groups (15+).
Since the DESTINY plan is not easily comparable to a traditional healthcare plan because of the use of a Personal Medical Fund that is generally owned by the employee, it's very hard to easily compare rates. If you want to just dabble in incentive based healthcare cost control, Destiny's pricing looks favorable. We think it's reasonable to consider and compare a self-directed HRA plan to any Destiny plan. When you do, Destiny does not appear to price out competitively.
On the plus side, renewals with Destiny have been Stellar as long as we have known of the carrier. In Illinois Destiny used to have an exemption from Illinois Small group pricing laws. The exemption is no longer present but Destiny had a 3 year phase in to correct existing groups to be in compliance. Renewals in Late 2006 and Early 2007 should really tell the true state of the Destiny book of business.
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