Bank of America Corporation
At Bank of America, we support our more than 200,000 U.S. employees during the moments that matter most to them and their families by providing a wide range of benefits and programs such as health insurance, health coaching, fitness challenges, confidential counseling and mental health/resiliency resources.
Our approach to health and wellness is built on things we can do together with our employees to manage costs: focusing on wellness and education, providing access to efficient and accountable health care providers, and helping employees be prepared to make informed health care choices. Employees can elect comprehensive medical, prescription medications, dental and vision coverage for themselves and their families.
Our annual health plan premiums are based on how much an employee earns. Those who earn more pay a higher percentage of the cost of health plan coverage. For the last three years, premiums have not increased for employees earning less than $50,000 a year.
In employee communications, we highlight that annual preventative physical exams are free to them. In addition, we designed our wellness offerings to help employees and their spouses/ partners better understand their health profiles and available resources — like health coaches — that can help them manage health issues and find specialists/facilities. Employees also can maintain up to a $1,000 credit toward their annual health premium if they and their spouse/ partner both complete a health screening (blood pressure, body mass index and cholesterol) and health assessment.
Our health strategy is resonating with the vast majority of employees completing the voluntary wellness activities: 162,000 in 2013 and 152,000 in 2014. In addition, 69,000 spouses/partners completed activities in 2014 — when we expanded our program to them.
As a result, we identified health and lifestyle concerns shared by our employees. Many were concerned about not getting enough physical activity, making poor diet choices and coping with stress.
In direct response, in October 2013 we introduced Get Active!, which uses voluntary, team-based activity challenges to help employees improve their overall health. In the first eight-week challenge, participants earned a reward by meeting certain activity goals. A remarkable 96,000 employees enrolled, forming more than 11,000 teams — surpassing all expectations and positioning the program as a valuable ongoing component of our wellness strategy.