Companies looking for a way to offer more affordable health benefits need to worry about things like Affordable Care Act compliance, minimum essential coverage, and ERISA. It is easy to get so overwhelmed by the compliance issues that little attention is paid to the benefits. For example, a more affordable health plan can help make voluntary benefits more attractive.
Voluntary benefits are those that employees can pick and choose from as they see fit. In some cases, a particular voluntary benefit is so inexpensive that the employer decides to cover the entire cost. Other times, employers require workers to pay for voluntary benefits. Still other times, employers and employees share the cost. Regardless of the payment model, paying less for health benefits means more money left over for voluntary benefits.
Examples of Common Voluntary Benefits
We work with a lot of smaller employers looking for a low-cost alternative to medical insurance. These are companies that haven’t even considered voluntary benefits before. If your organization is in this position, perhaps you’re not even aware of the most common voluntary benefits employees look for.
Every workplace is different. But here are some of the more common voluntary options in today’s market:
- Dental and Vision Plans – Among all voluntary benefits, dental and vision is probably the most popular.
- Group Life Insurance – Employers can offer an employer-sponsored life insurance plan. Typically, this is a group term life insurance program.
- Critical Illness – A critical illness policy pays a lump sum when an employee is diagnosed with a covered illness, injury, or medical condition.
- Disability Insurance – Employers across the country offer both short- and long-term disability insurance. It pays a certain percentage of an employee’s wages in the event that working is not possible.
There are other options, including pet insurance, student loan repayment assistance, and a variety of employee-sponsored wellness benefits. Voluntary benefits are attractive to employees because they get better rates through employer groups than they could get on their own.
More Affordable Health Benefits Are Out There
We have worked with companies that wanted to offer voluntary benefits but didn’t think they could afford them. When they found out that more affordable health benefits are out there, they were able to do both. We can help by offering you a less expensive option than traditional healthcare coverage.
We act as a third-party administrator of employer-sponsored, self-funded health plans. We offer a number of different plans that give you and your employees choices. And because our health plans tend to cost less, you and your team have more money to put into voluntary benefits.
Better Benefits Help You Compete
There are plenty of valid reasons to consider combining employer-sponsored health plans with voluntary benefits, not the least of which is boosting your ability to compete for a limited pool of workers. If you have jobs to fill and you are not offering voluntary benefits, you could be losing out to the competition.
Modern employees expect a basic health plan and retirement option, at minimum. If they need to choose between an employer with voluntary benefits and one without, the one with is likely to be the winner. So it is more important than ever to find a way to offer voluntary benefits.
There is no perfect solution for every company. However, if you are looking for a more affordable way to offer your team members health benefits, we might have exactly what you’re looking for. And if so, an affordable health plan could open the door to a wide variety of voluntary benefits for your team.
