CHRO or rewards lead · 2,000 and above, multi-entity
At this size, benefits are a governance system, not a purchase.
Last reviewed:
Several entities, several locations, several inherited policies that were never harmonised. Procurement, legal and the security review arrive before the benefits conversation does, and the failure that matters is not a bad month. It is a systemic problem that stays invisible until it is already in the numbers.
This page is written for one chair. If it is not yours, start here instead.
20 minutes with a Growth Advisor. No obligation, and no quote pushed.
What this job is actually about
Somewhere past ten thousand people the job stops being operations and becomes governance. You are no longer trying to make a programme good. You are trying to make it consistent, defensible and legible to a board, while keeping it locally relevant enough that an employee in one entity does not quietly get a worse deal than an employee in another.
Averages hide the severe cases. The programme can look healthy in aggregate while a small number of catastrophic files are the whole story.
The three problems that scale
- Variance across entities. Acquisitions, legacy placements and local decisions leave you with several different promises to several different populations. Some of that variance is deliberate and worth keeping. Most of it is nobody’s decision, and it is the part that becomes an employee relations problem.
- Customisation refused. At this size the plan should fit the workforce rather than the other way round, and the market’s instinct is to offer the standard construct with a discount attached. A tier that reads as unfair to one population costs more in credibility than it ever saves in premium.
- The severe case nobody saw coming. A data incident, an industrial relations flare-up, a cluster of high-value claims in one location. Each of them is visible early in the file-level detail and invisible in the annual summary.
What this band buys is not a cheaper programme. It is accountability with one owner, evidence that survives a board question, and local execution that does not have to be supervised.
Where we start
- A map of what each entity actually holds. Not what the policy schedule says at group level. Wordings, sub-limits, dependant definitions and service arrangements, entity by entity, so the variance is on one page for the first time.
- Separate the deliberate variance from the accidental. Harmonisation is a decision, not a default. Some differences exist for good local reasons and should survive.
- Make the severe cases visible. Claims read at file level rather than in aggregate, so a pattern is caught in the quarter it starts rather than at renewal.
- Agree the service spine. A named owner, defined response commitments, and a review rhythm that produces something you can take to a board.
Sitting alongside your incumbent
Most conversations at this size begin with an existing global broker and a head office mandate that is not up for discussion. That is not an obstacle, and it does not have to be resolved before anything useful can happen.
Ethika as your broker
We place the cover, negotiate with insurers, run the servicing and defend every claim. In this model we ask to be your only broker to the insurance market, because one broker dealing cleanly with insurers earns better terms than several chasing the same account.
Ethika alongside your broker
The incumbent keeps the placement. We come in as the claims and service partner, running claim defence and the everyday layer, with no disruption to the existing arrangement and no competition for the placement.
Large employers also tend to have identity invested in their own programme names. The everyday layer can carry your name rather than ours. The insurance placement itself always names the insurer and the broker, because regulation requires it.
Data, security and the review that comes first
At this size the security questionnaire arrives before the benefits conversation, and a benefits vendor that cannot answer it never reaches the shortlist. So it is worth stating the position plainly rather than in a footnote.
- Employee health data is held to deliver and administer the benefit and the claim, under access controls. Never sold. Never used to profile or advertise to your people.
- Reporting shows usage, not identities.
- Certifications held: SOC 2 and ISO 27001 for data security, and ISO 9001:2015.
- A security and data protection pack is prepared for procurement, legal and security review, and is the leave-behind most often asked for first.
If a security review is where your process starts, start there. Ask for the pack before you ask for a proposal.
Proof, in public
The credential worth weighing at this size is not an award. It is a decade of public reviews from the people the programme was bought for, and a claims operation that has been audited by procurement teams like yours.
Much of the review writing is people thanking an Ethika person by name.
Bootstrapped from day one and profitable from year one. There is no insurer above us and no investor behind us, which is the structural reason a recommendation can be independent rather than merely described as independent.
20 minutes with a Growth Advisor. No obligation.
Common questions
Will you work alongside our global broker rather than replacing them?
Can the programme carry our name rather than yours?
We run several entities on different policies. Where does that start?
What does your reporting show a board?
How does an RFP with you actually run?
Governance, with local relevance
Consistency you can evidence, variance you chose on purpose, and severe cases you can see while there is still time to act on them.
What happens when you talk to us
A 20-minute video call with a Growth Advisor. No obligation and no quote pushed. In that first call we usually look at:
- How many distinct benefit promises exist across your entities today
- Where your claims experience is concentrated, and whether anyone is watching it monthly
- Whether an alongside arrangement or a full appointment fits your mandate
- What your security and legal review will need from us, and when
You will leave with an honest read on your programme, and a straight answer on whether we can genuinely help at your scale.
20 minutes with a Growth Advisor. No obligation.
A note on this page. This page is general information about how cover and claims work for companies like yours. It is not insurance, legal, financial or tax advice, and nothing on it is an offer of cover. What is right for your company is determined through a conversation and the formal placement process. Outcomes on any claim depend on the individual policy terms.
Sources. Company figures are taken from Fixed Facts and are stated as published. Market figures are named with their source and year; no data published by a competing broker, benefits consultant or benefits platform is cited. Statutory positions are described in general terms, with thresholds and amounts held back for compliance review rather than published here.
Ethika Insurance Broking Pvt Ltd · IRDAI-licensed Direct Insurance Broker (Life & General), Certificate No. 574, licence dated 8 August 2016, valid till 7 August 2028 · CIN U66030TG2015PTC099365 · Principal Officer: Sandeep Mukka · Member, Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI). Insurance is the subject matter of solicitation.
The full registration block is carried by the shared site footer in production. It is repeated here so the page is compliant if it is ever read, printed or shared on its own.