Employee Benefits

Health Insurance

Health Insurance is the foundation of a comprehensive company benefits plan. It is likely to be one of the first things prospective employees will ask about when discussing compensation, especially if they have families. If you want to be competitive in recruiting talent, especially in an in-demand labor market (such as high tech), strong medical benefits need to be part of the package.

Structuring a medical plan can be a strain if you don’t know the questions to ask. What is the makeup of my employee base? Where are my employees located currently? Where will they be as I begin a hiring pattern or execute expansion plans? These are the types of questions that need to be addressed before you implement a plan design, not after.

Medical insurance is too important not get right the first time and is a major headache to go back and fix. Make sure to get the proper guidance to see to it that your plan is the right fit and is scalable and flexible enough to accommodate future growth.

If your company is reaching the point where the question of ‘do we need to offer medical coverage yet?’ is being asked, the time to look at options is now. Lean on our expertise, contact us today.

Dental & Vision

These coverages will typically go together with medical insurance. Dental is more of a primary benefit than vision coverage, but for the price, vision is often included as part of a package.

As with medical coverage, dental coverage has its own set of issues and questions that need to be addressed. These questions would be similar to what would be asked when developing a program for medical coverage and the same logic and structure can be applied.

Life & Disability

These two coverages typically go hand in hand. They protect two things that are highly valued by employees. Life insurance protects the financial well being of one’s family in the event of an untimely death. Disability protects what may be an employee’s most valuable asset, their ability to earn an income.

Disability insurance plays a key role as a benefit. This is because disability coverage is something most employees do not have unless they are getting it through an employer. Life insurance is always important to employees, simply because it speaks to the well being of loved ones. These coverages can be considered as ancillary since they typically come into play after medical and dental/vision coverages have been put in place. With that said, life and disability coverages are a key part of a well rounded benefits package.

Cafeteria/Section 125

Cafeteria/Section 125 Plans are employee benefits program designed to take advantage of Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code. A Cafeteria Plan allows employees to pay for certain qualified expenses on a pre-tax basis, thereby reducing their total taxable income.

Eligible expenses that would apply include health care premiums, health care expenses such as medical deductibles and office visit copays, durable equipment one may need to purchase such as crutches or wheelchairs, it can cover a lot of ground. Medical bills add up, so can the outside costs beyond just insurance premiums. A Cafeteria/Section 125 is a way to help your employees mitigate some of these costs by leveraging the tax code.

There are other variations of tax qualified plans that would fall within this scope such as FSA’s, HRA’s and POP plans. It all depends on what an employer is looking to do for their employees and what is a proper fit.