Offering Healthcare Benefits That Say Something about Your Small Business
By: Jordan Jolley (Zane Benefits) January 2015
Healthcare benefits are a big part of any business, right? In fact, many candidates will specifically look at what your small business offers and even base their decisions to work for you upon your healthcare benefits. But, many small businesses struggle to offer healthcare benefits due to rising costs of group health insurance. Don’t worry, we’ve got a solution so you can offer healthcare benefits that say something about your small business: Premium reimbursement for individual health insurance.
This article is an excerpt from our new eBook “The Small Business Guide to Human Resources.” For a complimentary copy, click here.
Why are Healthcare Benefits Important to Your Small Business?
Healthcare benefits are important to your small business and allow you to recruit and retain employees. Did you know that 49% of small businesses say they can’t attract and retain top quality employees without competitive benefits? In other words, without competitive benefits, it’s extremely difficult to keep some of the best workers you’ve had since the day you opened. And when it comes time to expand your small business, recruiting will be even more difficult without competitive benefits to offer candidates.
Furthermore, some healthcare benefits such as group health insurance are time-consuming and costly to your small business, yet you still need to offer competitive healthcare benefits. So what’s the solution? Offer premium reimbursement for individual health insurance.
Individual Health Insurance Premium Reimbursement
Individual health insurance reimbursement is the way to offer affordable, portable health benefits to your small business’s staff. In fact, 100 million Americans will move from employer health insurance to individually-purchased health insurance over the next 10 years because individual health insurance allows you to:
Save Time: Rather than going through oftentimes confusing paperwork with group health insurance, offering premium reimbursement for individual health insurance means you only deal with the reimbursement. In other words, your employees will go to the Healthcare Marketplace, a broker, or online to purchase their own insurance. Premium reimbursements are administered monthly and takes five to ten minutes to complete.
Save Money: Owning a small business means you probably track your finances pretty closely. Premium reimbursement is a great way to save 20% to 60% over group health insurance costs. How? It’s actually simple. You set a monthly healthcare allowance for each employee (ex. $150/month). Employees then show proof of their premium expense and are reimbursed for their premium, up to the amount of their available balance. This allows you to know exactly how much you’re spending each month on healthcare benefits. If your employee chooses not to use it or doesn’t use it all, the money stays with your business.
You set a monthly healthcare allowance for each employee (i.e. $100) and they are reimbursed this amount monthly for their individual healthcare premium. This way, you know exactly how much you’re spending each month on healthcare benefits for your small business.
Provide Choice: Employees love choice and individual health insurance allows your employees to choose the healthcare plan that fits their needs, lifestyle, and budget. Plus, employees will be able to choose the doctors and clinics they enjoy the most.
Recruit Better: As previously mentioned, candidates look at the healthcare benefits you offer. Premium reimbursement for individual health insurance allows you to offer healthcare benefits that say something about your company–they show you care. And as a result, you’ll find recruiting is easier. You can proudly offer candidates an affordable healthcare benefit to go along with your company’s other perks and benefits.
Conclusion
If you want to say something about your small business, offer health benefits to your employees that are affordable, portable, safe, and provide choice. The way to do this is through premium reimbursement for individual health insurance. You’ll be able to recruit and retain employees and enable growth and success in your small business.
