NIB is poised to close its Kotara branch and will shut its other three Hunter retail branches by the end of 2021 because of a "significant" drop in transactions and foot traffic.
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The Newcastle-headquartered, Hunter founded private health insurer confirmed on Thursday that it will close all of its 11 retail branches on the east coast by the end of next year.
NIB has already temporarily closed some of its retail centres - including its Hunter locations at Kotara, Honeysuckle, Greenhills and Charlestown - as a precaution due to COVID-19.
In addition to the temporary closures, NIB announced it will permanently close its Kotara, Liverpool and Tuggerah retail centres on September 4.
"The closure of these centres follows a review of our retail network strategy, which highlighted an ongoing and significant decline in retail transactions as well as foot traffic, as members move online to manage their health cover," an NIB spokesperson said.
"For example, only 0.1% of all claims are processed in a retail centre."
The spokesperson said that NIB would continue to invest in digital member services channels due to their growing popularity and convenience "compared to traditional face-to-face servicing".
With more people choosing to interact with companies such as nib via online channels, NIB has opted not to renew its existing lease agreements for its retail network.
"This means we expect all our retail centres to be closed by the end of 2021, including our three other Hunter-based retail centres," the spokesperson said.
"This decision has not been made lightly and we will be working closely with employees to ensure that we support them in their transition to alternative work arrangements including redeployment throughout the nib Group."
The spokesperson said while NIB's focus was on redeploying the majority of its employees across other areas in the nib Group, "there may be some job losses based on individual roles and circumstances."
NIB will be emailing or mailing members who have used the centres over the past 12 months to notify them of the closure and alternative nib member service channels.
NIB dental retail services and NIB eyecare centres will not be affected.
Medibank's store at Charlestown remains temporarily closed during COVID-19 to protect the health and wellbeing of staff and customers.
"We are currently working with the shopping centre's management to ensure appropriate social distancing controls are in place before we reopen our store," its chief customer officer David Koczkar said.
"Local team members have been redeployed across other customer support channels including our phone and digital network, while working remotely from home, to continue to support our customers in the region.
"Our people are looking forward to returning to supporting our customers face to face in the Charlestown store as soon as it's safe to do so."
A spokesperson for BUPA said it had no plans to shut its Kotara store.
A BUPA spokesperson said it had no plans to shut its Kotara store.
HCF's Charlestown and Maitland stores have reopened after closing in lockdown. [The Maitland store is currently closed for building work).
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Penelope Green
Business, news and feature reporter.
Business, news and feature reporter.
