With the Carleton University Students’ Association’s (CUSA) planning to increase the price of the student health plan to provide more benefits, The Charlatan took a look at the company who provides undergraduate students with insurance.
CUSA has been partnered with Studentcare—an insurance broker—to provide students with their health plan for the past three and a half years.
They were contracted by CUSA in the summer of 2012 to help find them a new health plan, when Alexander Golovko was president of the student association. After leaving Carleton, Golovko started working for the company in December 2014 as a project manager along with many other former student union executives from different universities.
Lev Bukhman, chief executive officer of Studentcare, said his company hires many former student leaders because of their knowledge of how to work with universities and students, the company’s main clientele. The company works with over 70 student associations to get coverage for around 750,000 students, Bukhman said.
“One of our core values has always been creating full and part-time employment opportunities for students and recent graduates at all levels of our organization,” he said.
Other student associations who have their health plans through Studentcare include the Student Society of McGill University, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union, and University of British Columbia Alma Mater Society.
Bukhman said he started the company when he was a law student at Western University in 1996 to help university student unions negotiate their health plans with insurance companies.
While Studentcare helped CUSA find and negotiate the terms of the plan, it is administered by Desjardins Insurance, according to CUSA president Fahd Alhattab.
Alhattab said after a full review of all CUSA’s major programs, the executive of the student union in 2012 decided to go with a health plan brokered by Studentcare. He said the company reached out to them to offer their services.
Before Studentcare, CUSA had a joint health plan with the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA). It was brokered by Morneau Shepell and administered by Green Shield Canada.
Alhattab said the decision to switch was based on the cost of the health plan, which was $178 per student in 2012 but is now $158 per student for the same services.
Bukhman said CUSA has been able to save around $1.2 million in health plan costs since September 2012, when the new plan administered by Studentcare came into effect.
“The student health plan is typically the most expensive service that’s presented to the students from the student association, so if you can save money in that service, that’s a really big impact,” he said.
CUSA’s health plan has since been increased to $192.77 effective September 2016. Alhattab said the health plan cost must increase periodically to keep it affordable for the student association. The GSA recently increased their health plan price by $70, totalling to $368 per student for the upcoming academic year.
