Insurers and Workplace Mental Health: An Opportunity to Seize

When we talk about workplace mental health management, we instinctively think of the role of HR and management. These teams are indeed on the front line when it comes to identifying, preventing and addressing workplace well-being issues.

The role of insurers is discussed less often, even though they are at the heart of physical and mental health concerns for employees and self-employed workers.

How can insurers address these issues? How can this be reflected in health policies? What opportunities should insurers seize to stand out from other health insurance providers? These are the questions we will explore below.

Mental Well-Being: A Major Expectation Among Policyholders

According to 2024 figures from France, 72% of entrepreneurs consider their physical and mental health to be “poor” (source: Mental Health Overview for Entrepreneurs by WILLA and Harmonie Mutuelle) and 34% of employees have already considered leaving their company to protect their mental health (source: teale’s Workplace Mental Health Barometer).  

These figures point to genuine distress and are prompting workers to rethink what they expect in terms of workplace well-being support. 90% also expect concrete measures from their employer to protect their mental health (source: Ifop survey, 2025).  

Expectations mainly centre on a better work-life balance, stress reduction, recognition at work, alignment between personal and company values, meaningful assignments that provide a genuine sense of purpose, and opportunities to develop skills and progress professionally.  

Why Insurers Have a Role to Play

For several years, and even more since the COVID-19 crisis, the health market has been undergoing major change. New technologies are increasingly used, including teleconsultations and monitoring apps. Policies are becoming more modular so they can adapt to each policyholder’s needs, while insurers are increasingly including preventive care in their policies, such as screening and physical activity, and offering tools to support health.

Against this backdrop, insurers are playing an increasingly important role in mental health care. By improving their coverage through higher reimbursements and a broader range of reimbursed services, they encourage policyholders to consult mental health professionals.

Some insurers are also introducing well-being programmes, including meditation apps, coaching and webinars, or targeted prevention campaigns. These initiatives play a key role in improving mental health because they give policyholders easy access to practical tools for managing stress, strengthening emotional resilience and developing healthy everyday habits.

Prevention also has a central role to play. Raising awareness of psychological risks at an early stage helps reduce the emergence of more serious conditions and limits the need for intensive and costly care.

By offering these resources proactively, insurers also normalise the idea of looking after one’s mental balance, helping to reduce the stigma that can still surround seeing a psychologist.

These programmes also encourage a continuous approach to mental health, prompting people to pay attention to their well-being throughout their lives rather than only during periods of crisis.

Together, these initiatives help remove financial and cultural barriers that prevent people from looking after their mental well-being and help normalise seeking psychological support.

Enhancing Health Policies with Targeted Services

Although mutual insurance providers and other health insurers are increasingly incorporating mental health issues into their policies, many limitations remain and leave room for improvement:

• reimbursements for sessions with a psychologist are often limited to a few sessions per year and cover only part of the patient’s costs;

• policies can lack clarity and their terms can be difficult for non-specialists to understand, meaning policyholders do not know exactly what is covered in relation to mental health;

• the approach is more curative than preventive: policies cover medical costs for diagnosed conditions, but do not invest enough in prevention, even though prevention is essential to protecting mental health, for example through stress management programmes or personal development coaching;

• although they are being rolled out, digital health services are still not sufficiently included in coverage, even though digital tools make it easier for people living in geographically isolated areas to access care and help reduce waiting times for appointments;

• mental health is not sufficiently included in a holistic approach, such as the links between nutrition, physical activity and psychological well-being, even though combined packages involving a nutritionist, relaxation therapist, sports coach and psychologist could provide holistic support.

Integrating a Mental Health Solution: What Are the Benefits for Insurers?

For insurers, more comprehensive mental health support adapted to people’s actual needs offers significant commercial and competitive benefits. It is a way to differentiate themselves from other insurance providers, retain existing policyholders and acquire new customers.

Meeting Corporate Clients’ Needs

As employees become increasingly aware of their mental well-being and expect more from their employers in this area, companies have every reason to develop their workplace mental health policy.  

Improving employees’ mental health offers many benefits: reduced absenteeism and presenteeism, talent retention, greater employer attractiveness and better collective performance.

Many preventive measures and support actions can be introduced as part of this workplace mental health approach: manager training, a company culture that promotes happiness at work, inclusion and diversity policies, and employee benefits, including the health policies discussed here.

By offering group policies with comprehensive mental health coverage, insurers respond to a current need, become more attractive and can hope to grow their corporate customer base.

Enhancing Brand Image and CSR

Including mental health in insurance policies is a genuine strategic lever for providers. By extending coverage to psychological disorders and the preservation of well-being, insurers demonstrate a strong commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This proactive approach enhances their brand image by positioning them as organisations attentive to social change and committed to people’s overall well-being.

It strengthens policyholder trust and loyalty, as people increasingly value guarantees adapted to current realities. It is also a genuine competitive advantage when winning new contracts. Faced with the many insurance offers available, employers consider financial criteria when choosing partners, but they also seek more comprehensive policies that can help them stand out from other companies.

teale: A Partner for Enhancing Your Insurance Offering

Through its workplace well-being solution, teale supports companies across many sectors, including consulting, technology, luxury and retail. A dedicated programme is also available for insurers, providing the tools and resources needed to integrate mental health prevention.

A Complete Solution for Supporting Policyholders

Would you like to make mental health central to your insurance policies, but are unsure how to proceed? Do you need support to introduce services dedicated to employee well-being?

teale offers a comprehensive programme with multiple services for policyholders, structured around three areas: awareness, personalised support and real-time impact monitoring.  

In practice, employees gain access to monthly themed webinars and a mobile app offering:

• free access to mental health experts, including psychologists and coaches;

• personalised content based on scientific studies and methods, helping people understand mental health and look after themselves in response to issues such as stress, low assertiveness and difficulty disconnecting from work;

• a self-assessment of mental health through an index developed by teale.

Simple and Customisable Implementation

Introducing such a comprehensive tool can sometimes seem daunting. How does it work technically? Will it adapt to my needs? What support will I receive? Will employees use the new service enough?

The advantage of teale’s solution is that it is modular and designed to fit your existing environment.  

Co-designed with insurers, it can be adapted to each partner’s specific needs. The goal is not to overhaul what already exists, but to complete and enrich your existing health services in continuity with what you already offer.

To ensure effective deployment, you are supported by the Insurance Lab, a team of teale experts dedicated to insurers. Their role is to advise you, configure the solution and ensure that your policyholders gain tangible benefits from it.

Already Adopted by Sector Leaders

Several insurance-sector clients have already trusted teale to develop their mental health offering for employed and self-employed policyholders.

AGIPI (the interprofessional association for provident and investment insurance) is one of them. In collaboration with teale, a tailored programme was designed to support the mental health of self-employed workers. As a result, 150,000 self-employed AGIPI members now have free access to teale’s solution and personalised tools.
The partnership goes further, aiming to improve understanding of the specific mental health challenges faced by self-employed workers and bring them to the attention of the wider public so that action can be taken at scale.

UROPS, the Union for Prevention and Health in the French Public Service, has also rolled out teale’s programme to its policyholders. This partnership enables UROPS to give 500,000 public-sector employees access to the teale app and take practical daily action to support their members’ mental health.