Metlife And Safeguard To Provide California Employers With New Dental Benefit Options
NEW YORK, NY, and ALISO VIEJO, CA - MetLife and SafeGuard Dental & Vision jointly announced today that they have entered into an agreement to provide employees of California businesses an innovative dental benefit offering. Under the agreement, employers will be able to make a dual option dental benefits offering available to their employees, consisting of — SafeGuard's dental health maintenance organization (DHMO) product alongside MetLife's insured dental preferred provider organization (PPO) product. This agreement offers employers a multi-product dental solution with a single point of administration for billing and eligibility. The offering is expected to be available July 1, 2005.
James E. Buncher, chairman and chief executive officer of SafeGuard, said, "We are excited to work with MetLife to offer SafeGuard's dental HMO product alongside MetLife's dental insurance products — providing California businesses with maximum flexibility and choice with simple administration. This new arrangement is a win/win for all stakeholders."
"MetLife continually seeks opportunities to provide customers with innovative products and services. Our new relationship with SafeGuard provides businesses with an easy and convenient way to provide employees with dental benefit solutions to meet their needs," said Paul Michael, vice president, MetLife Dental Product Management.
This new dental benefit offering will be available in California to businesses and groups with 200 or more employees or members.
About MetLife
MetLife is the largest commercial dental administrator in the United States, administering dental benefits for over 20 million Americans at thousands of companies and organizations of all sizes. MetLife, a subsidiary of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET), is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to individual and institutional customers. The MetLife companies serve individuals in approximately 13 million households in the U.S. and provide benefits to 37 million employees and family members through their plan sponsors. Outside the U.S., the MetLife companies serve approximately 9 million customers through direct insurance operations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan and Uruguay. For more information about MetLife, please visit the company's Web site at www.metlife.com.
About SafeGuard Dental & Vision
SafeGuard Dental & Vision is a family of companies that are part of SafeGuard Health Enterprises, Inc. SafeGuard is committed to the dental and vision business with over 30 years experience providing dental and vision HMO, PPO, indemnity, and ASO products to over 1.5 million members primarily in California, Florida, Nevada and Texas. For more information, visit SafeGuard's Web site at www.safeguard.net.
Source: MetLife and SafeGuard Dental & Vision