Health Insurance

Group insurance benefits

An employee benefits package covering health, dental, life and disability for a team under one plan. It is usually the most cost-effective way to provide this cover, because risk is pooled across the group rather than assessed person by person — and it is one of the few benefits staff genuinely notice and value.

What Is Included

The usual building blocks

A group plan is assembled from components. You choose which to include and at what level, and the mix drives the cost as much as the size of the team does.

Extended health

Prescription drugs, paramedical services, vision, medical equipment and out-of-country emergency cover. Usually the component staff use most, and therefore the one most visible to them.

Dental

Cleaning and examinations, restorative work, and at higher levels major work and orthodontics. Along with drug coverage, this is what employees notice first when comparing an offer against another employer\’s.

Life and accidental death

A death benefit, commonly set as a multiple of salary, paid to the employee\’s beneficiary. Inexpensive per person and often the least-discussed part of a plan until it is needed.

Disability

Short-term and long-term income replacement. This is where the largest claims sit and where the wording most repays attention — the definition of disability and the benefit cap decide what an employee actually receives. See disability insurance.

Employee assistance

Counselling and support services, usually inexpensive to add and increasingly expected. Take-up is low but the employees who use it tend to be the ones the business would otherwise lose.

Why Offer It

What it does for the business

Recruiting and keeping people

For many candidates a benefits package is the difference between two otherwise comparable offers, and it is considerably cheaper than matching a salary difference. Staff who would have to buy dental and drug cover themselves are comparing the plan against a real out-of-pocket cost.

It is generally more efficient than individual cover

Because the group is underwritten as a whole rather than person by person, cover is usually available at a better rate than the same people would obtain individually — and often without individual medical questions, which matters to anyone who would struggle to get cover on their own.

Tax treatment

Employer contributions to most group benefits are generally a deductible business expense, and several components are not taxable in the employee\’s hands. The treatment varies by component — notably disability, where who pays the premium decides whether the benefit is taxable — so it is worth structuring deliberately with your accountant rather than by default.

Group versus individual

Group cover is cheaper and easier to obtain, but it belongs to the employer and ends when employment does. Individual cover costs more and is underwritten personally, but it travels with the person. Many people are best served by a group plan plus their own life and disability cover — the two are not alternatives.

Tell staff what happens when they leave. Group cover usually ends within days or weeks of employment ending, and most insurers allow conversion to an individual plan without medical questions only if the employee applies within a short window — commonly sixty days. Employees who do not know that miss it, and discover the gap at the worst time. Putting it in the leaver pack costs nothing.

No obligation

We market the plan for you.

As a brokerage we put the same requirement to multiple insurers and compare what comes back, rather than renewing whatever is already in place. Tell us the size of the team and what you want covered, and you will get a like-for-like comparison.

Talk to an advisor

Group benefits questions

Small-business plans commonly start at two or three lives. Below that, individual cover is usually the better route, though it is worth pricing both rather than assuming.

Usually not for the standard levels of cover, which is one of the main advantages of a group plan. Higher optional amounts of life or disability cover may require evidence of insurability.

Either, or shared. Cost-sharing is common. The split has tax consequences, particularly for disability, so decide it deliberately rather than by default.

Yes, and it is worth marketing the plan every couple of years rather than renewing automatically. Renewal increases are normal as a group ages and claims accumulate, but they should be tested against the market rather than accepted.

Usually, subject to a minimum weekly hours requirement set in the contract. Where you draw that line is one of the decisions to make when the plan is designed.

Setting up benefits for a team?

Call 437-428-2828 and talk it through with a licensed advisor. Mon–Sat, 9am–8pm ET. No obligation, and nobody will push you to buy on the call.

Call 437-428-2828