profit provident association industry health insurance founded 1901 headquarters taunton somerset uk key people julian stainton ceo number of employees 200 2012 website www.wpa.org.uk wpa or western provident association is a not for profit private medical insurance firm based in taunton somerset . its subsidiary wpa protocol plc administers corporate healthcare trusts . contents 1 history 1.1 coinsurance 1.2 wpa vs. norwich union healthcare 1.3 cancer drugs and nhs top up 2 wpa protocol plc 3 wpa franchise 4 references 5 external links history edit in 1901 a group of workers founded the reading work people s voluntary hospital contributory fund to cover the costs of health care for their members . in 1939 it merged with the bristol hospital fund and in 1949 it was renamed the western provident association wpa . in 1992 wpa moved from bristol to a specially designed building in taunton somerset . coinsurance edit wpa was described by the world health organization as leading in the development of coinsurance or shared responsibility policies in which the patient pays a portion of the liability until an agreed limit . 1 wpa vs. norwich union healthcare edit in 1997 norwich union staff falsely claimed over e mail that wpa was insolvent . wpa sued for defamation . norwich union made a high court apology and paid 450 000 in damages and costs to settle the case . 2 this was a landmark case because it was the first time e mail was admitted as evidence in a british court . 3 cancer drugs and nhs top up edit in 2007 wpa launched a new insurance plan which provided a health top up supplementing nhs treatment . the first policy called mycancerdrugs was the first of its kind in the world 4 and funded cancer drugs licensed for use by the european medicines agency but not available on the nhs including avastin . 5 subsequently other insurance companies have entered the top up market and criticism has been levelled at the products from the union unison which stated that the products would undermine the values of the nhs and risk creating a two tier system in health care . 6 wpa protocol plc edit wpa protocol administers corporate healthcare trusts . this is an alternative arrangement to private medical insurance whereby larger companies defined by protocol as usually those with 400 or more members can use wpa s infrastructure to administer their own healthcare provision . companies provide the funds from a trust and wpa protocol provides bespoke literature and telephone lines 7 as well as staff infrastructure and economies of scale . trusts are not charged insurance premium tax and staff are considered to be more likely to claim responsibly from their own company as opposed to an insurer . savings are estimated to be 7 % compared to being fully insured . 7 wpa franchise edit wpa has a well established and british franchise association bfa approved uk franchise operation where local wpa franchisees advise on wpa health insurance products and provide on going customer support . the franchisees are remunerated for retention as well as the growth of their business reflecting wpa s focus on treating customers fairly . franchisees must complete a training course as well as ongoing training and submit a fidelity bond to ensure that customers are treated fairly 8 although no franchisee has foregone a fidelity bond . 9 references edit private medical insurance in the united kingdom . world health organization . retrieved 2006 . check date values in access date help letting go of e mail . information age . retrieved 2006 02 10 . mail news and more . exeter university . wpa insurance wins top national award . bbc news . retrieved 2007 09 18 . controversial nhs scheme launched . london the daily mail . 2007 04 24 . retrieved 2007 04 24 . insurance firms eye top up market . bbc news . 2008 11 07 . retrieved 2008 11 07 . a b diy pmi . health insurance magazine . retrieved 2002 10 . check date values in access date help franchisor data entry form . whatfranchise . health insurance franchise advice from wpa franchise . youtube . retrieved 2009 11 06 . external links edit wpa website wpa protocol plc website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title western provident association & oldid 672163387 categories health insurance companiescompanies based in somersetnon profit organisations based in the united kingdomhidden categories cs1 errors dates navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 19 july 2015 at 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