Strong partnerships have always been at the heart of our strategic journey.
As the IPMI market continues to evolve, the importance of listening, collaborating and responding to the needs of our intermediary partners has never been greater. That’s why we established the Intermediary Advisory Board (IAB) in 2024: a dedicated forum that brings together our most valued, senior strategic partners and Bupa Global leadership to shape the future of our business and the wider industry.
With a direct line to clients, you as intermediaries have a unique perspective on the challenges you face, the trends influencing purchasing decisions, and the support required to unlock growth. By creating a forum for open and honest dialogue, we can better understand where we are delivering value, where we need to improve, and what opportunities lie ahead.
Through collaborative conversation, our IAB community gets the opportunity to share insights, challenge assumptions and contribute to strategic thinking. In turn, we gain a deeper understanding of market dynamics and can use this intelligence to inform decision-making, investment priorities and discuss future direction.
Through these forums, we examine emerging trends shaping healthcare, including changing customer expectations, digital health and AI innovation, preventive care, and insights from our global claims data.
We bring expert voices from across the industry and Bupa, representing Finance, Claims Operations and Healthcare Management, Clinical, Strategy and Transformation, and more.
Delivering value beyond the IAB
This level of engagement within our IAB helps ensure that partner perspectives remain central to our decision-making process.
For us, these conversations help us identify emerging trends earlier and ensure our strategy remains aligned with the needs of customers and you, our strategic partners alike.
But the insights generated through the IAB deliver value beyond this select group. Feedback is captured, shared internally and translated into priorities and actions. This helps strengthen the connection between partner feedback and business strategy, ensuring that discussions lead to meaningful outcomes.
From a global sounding board to regionally relevant forum
Our first IABs in 2024 and 2025 were a global forum, but as conversations progressed, the demand for a more regional focus became clear.
The reason is simple: healthcare markets are not all the same.
Although many of the challenges facing the IPMI industry are shared globally, each region operates within its own regulatory environment, healthcare system, cultural context and customer landscape.
This year, we shifted to regional forums to allow conversations to focus on the realities and priorities of each market while maintaining alignment with broader commercial objectives. We began with Africa, UK and Europe, with more to follow.
Instead of one global discussion, we were able to explore local market challenges in greater depth and identify opportunities that may otherwise be overlooked. This produced richer feedback and enables more targeted action.
The new regional format also helped strengthen local relationships. By bringing together intermediary partners and Bupa leaders from the same market, discussions became more relevant, practical and actionable.
Partners could share experiences with peers facing similar challenges, while we were able to gain a clearer understanding of the regional support required to improve the overall customer experience.
Looking ahead
In a constantly changing landscape, collaboration becomes increasingly important in building momentum towards a stronger IPMI industry, together.
IABs play a critical role here, ensuring we continue to learn from one another, tackle shared challenges and identify opportunities for growth.
By combining strategic global discussions with focused regional engagement, we ensure that partner insights continue to shape our priorities, strengthen our proposition and ultimately deliver greater value for our customers around the world.
We thank our partners for their commitment to building our regional IAB communities and look forward to future sessions.