PruHealth and Sainsbury’s partner to encourage healthy eating

PruHealth, the innovative private medical insurer, announced today it has partnered with leading supermarket Sainsbury’s in a move that could see PruHealth PMI customers rewarded for buying fresh fruit and vegetables at Sainsbury’s.

The deal will provide PruHealth policyholders, both individual and corporate, with the opportunity to earn PruHealth Vitality Points when buying fresh fruit and vegetables at Sainsbury’s. For every £2 spent on your weekly fruit and vegetable shop you could earn PruHealth Vitality points which will then be accrued over the course of a year and offset against your premiums the following year, assuming no claims have been made.

Points will be earned according to monetary spend, so for every £2 spent on fresh fruit and vegetables, policyholders will receive 1 Vitality point. Individual policyholders will be capped at 10 points per week. The maximum number of points an individual policyholder can accrue over the course of a year is 520. Family policyholders will be limited to 20 points per week per family policy. A family can accrue a maximum of 1040 points over the course of a year.

PruHealth customers will simply have to give PruHealth their Nectar card number and opt in to receive the benefits. Then when they go into a Sainsbury’s store or online and purchase fresh fruit and vegetables from the fresh fruit and vegetable aisles they could earn Vitality points. All members over 18 on a policy can register a Nectar card and the total spend each week will be used to calculate the points earned by the policy.

Shaun Matisonn, PruHealth Chief Executive, said: “We are delighted to have teamed up with Sainsbury’s, which has such a large national footprint. This is the first time in the UK that a health insurer has provided a retail benefit on your everyday grocery shopping. We are adding another element to our Vitality concept by allowing policyholders to collect Vitality points by buying fruit and vegetables at Sainsbury’s, essentially rewarding them for what they are already doing. This partnership demonstrates both companies’ commitment to improving health in the UK.”

Leigh Rengger, Head of Loyalty at Sainsbury’s, said: “We are always looking at opportunities to encourage our customers to lead healthier lifestyles. This scheme rewards customers for eating healthily which could potentially reduce their PruHealth insurance premiums and is an innovative tie-up that enhances our pledge to get people to eat their five a day.”

Sainsbury’s joins PruHealth’s existing Vitality partners which include Boots (group customers will have access to health screens from 31 October 2007), Virgin Active, Cannons, LA Fitness, Nuffield Proactive Health and Allen Carr’s Easyway. Vitality gives people the opportunity to be rewarded with lower premiums, depending on the claims they have made, for making positive lifestyle changes or simply maintaining a healthy lifestyle, in conjunction with PruHealth’s Vitality Programme.