Employee Benefits
Group Health Insurance + Benefits for Your Workplace
We help businesses and non-profits with 1-99 employees research, choose and implement employee benefits. Working as an independent broker with all the available plans, we can objectively recommend the best choices for each employer. We then work throughout the year with the group in providing benefit booklets, education, assisting with adding and removing employees from the plans, and COBRA. And helping at any time with advice and problem-solving.
Employer-Paid Vs. Voluntary
As you are considering offering employee insurance benefits at your workplace, or comparing your current benefits package to what we might offer as an alternative, keep in mind the difference between these two terms; “employer-paid” or “voluntary.”
Since cost, to both the employer, and the employee, drives every bit of employee benefits offering decisions, it is beneficial to keep these terms in mind, to select the best “happy medium” between benefits and costs for you and your employees.
Employer-Paid:
In this scenario the employee insurance benefit is paid in full, or a majority of the monthly premium cost is paid by the employer, as part of employees' compensation package.
We see this the most in group health and life insurance. Other insurance benefits can be employer-paid to make the benefits package richer.
Voluntary:
With voluntary insurance benefits, the employer offers the employee benefit, but pays little to none of the monthly premium cost.
Each eligible employee has the option to choose the benefit or not. An employee whom chooses the coverage pays the premium cost of the benefit through payroll deduction.
Employee Benefits We Help Employers With
Group Health Insurance
Group Health Insurance is the benchmark offering of insurance employee benefits. Employers with strong, cohesive employee groups offer group health insurance. And employees of businesses and non-profits that do not offer group health insurance do not view their employer as a long-term option for their work life.
A great by-product of the instability of the Affordable Care Act is that health insurance companies see group health insurance plans in the 1-99 employee size market as very stable, easy to offer health insurance, and a growth market. So the insurers are very competitive in pricing, driving the cost of group health insurance down (instead of increasing costs) over the past few years.
We can design health insurance plans in differing designs; copay plans, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs). Groups with 10 or more eligible employees can offer two plan designs, allowing each employee their choice. Employers must offer to each full-time employee, and can decide how much of the monthly premium cost the employer will pay (deductible as a business expense) and the portion the employees will pay (pre-tax through payroll deduction).
Dental Insurance
Coverage for dental services at the dentist, pediatric dentist, endodontist, and even orthodontist.
Employees love dental insurance! They ask for this employee benefit more than any other. We encourage employers to pay for a portion of the premium cost, which employees see as a big benefit.
Disability Insurance
Disability insurance replaces an employee’s take home income as a benefit when they cannot work because of accident or sickness. The benefit is essential to anyone who works and has to fund a family budget. Employers benefit knowing the employee is financially well.
Disability insurance is best offered on a voluntary basis, as when you pay for your own DI coverage, any benefits you receive because of a disability are tax-free.
H.S.A.s and H.R.A.s
Paired with a high deductible health insurance plan (which have lower premium costs) the Health Savings Account or Health Reimbursement Account allows employees to save monies for qualified medical services in a pre-tax way, through payroll deduction.
Employers can help fund the accounts as a benefit.
Vision Insurance
Insurance coverage to help pay for annual eye exams (which health insurance rarely covers), and also coverage for frames, lenses and contacts.
Vision insurance is a great choice for offering on a voluntary basis, allowing employees who could benefit from the coverage to choose it.
Long Term Care Insurance
Long term care insurance is offered individually and but insurers also offer LTC insurance as a group benefit (this is one the employer usually does not pay for).
The big benefit here is that the insurer offers the LTC group insurance in some form of “guaranteed issue,” meaning there are no health questions or underwriting, the employee’s eligiblity is simply that they work with the employer.
Retirement Savings Plans
Employers can choose from a varied number of qualified retirement savings plans that allow employees to save for retirement pre-tax through payroll deduction, some with employer matches (SIMPLE IRA, SEP IRA, 401k. 403b, payroll deduction IRA).
See chipmillardfinancial.com for more information.
Life Insurance
We consider life insurance a benefit best purchased individually, as each of us has a different need based on our family size, income, and other factors.
Many times we will add in a small life insurance benefit for each employee, say $15k-$25k, the employer offers and pays for. Employees can choose more if they like.
Hospital Indemnity and Critical Illness
These newer employee benefits help fill in gaps in health insurance plans, paying dollar amounts or set benefits for differing medical services you might incur, or helping to pay for part of the deductible in your health insurance plan.
When recommending these plans we choose one that dovetails with the health insurance plan benefits. They can be offered employer-paid or voluntary.
Section 125 Premium Only Plan
Employees can pay their share of premium costs for health, dental and vision insurance pre-tax through payroll deduction, according to the IRS and their Section 125 Premium Only Plan regulations.
We can help with the simple paperwork necessary to set this up with your payroll system, at no cost.
This is just a short overview of some of the employee benefits we help or clients with. We can offer more details, with costs, in responding to your quote request.
There are lots of insurance brokers to work with in NC. Why Chip?
The Affordable Care Act, and all its changes, inadvertently spurred a lot of consolidation in the health insurance brokerage industry, especially brokerages that work in employee benefits. Brokerages with local ownership and focus, like ours, have become few and far between.
Many of the employee benefits brokerages in NC follow the same script…corporate direction from afar, cookie-cutter employee benefits packages usually chosen to meet a sales quota in a special agreement with an insurer, not chosen because it was the best choice for the client, and customer service that is just on par. The only constant, it seems, is that your company representative will be different each year!
That may seem like a tough critique, but when we speak with a new client looking to get a second option on their employee benefits package at renewal time we see these same things over and over again.
We are local, experienced, and consistent, always in this market (for 20 years and counting). Below are a few of the things we do for each of our clients, at their direction:
We educate your employees about the benefits.
Once we design and agree on an employee benefits offering we love to visit your employees to educate them on the benefits, and give them a chance to answer questions.
The visits can occur in person or via Zoom call, as a group, small groups or individually.
We build you benefit booklets, explaining costs and benefits.
We build you custom benefit booklets at no extra cost, explaining each of the benefits, what the employer pays for as a benefit, and the cost to the employee (broken down into “per pay period” costs).
The booklets also answer FAQs and explains how the employee can contact us or the insurer for information and assistance.
We help throughout the year with plan administration.
We help throughout the year with plan administration, in a way the owner or administrator would like.
That help could be with billing info and questions, adding and terming employees from coverage, preparing COBRA paperwork, and answering questions throughout the year.
Some of the Insurers We Partner With in Offering Benefit Plan Designs
We Can Accomplish Most Everything Online and Give The Paper a Rest
Insurance companies always seem to be “the last to the party” when it comes to technology and new ways of doing things. But they are finally leaping into the digital age!
We can accomplish most tasks, including application and enrollment, and any changes, online, without paper enrollment forms. And we can deliver ID cards, policy documents, even billing statements online or via pdf, instead of paper copies in the mail.
And employees will have online access, 24/7/365, to see benefits, claims and other important info about their employee benefits.
Free Quotes for Your Group and Info on What is Working Now
Many employers who contact us for the first time have more questions than ideas about what they would like to see in benefits. If that is where you are give us a call, (919) 357-6637. Or if you would like to see some of our ideas complete the form below and Chip will send you an email with recommended quotes of insurance (including examples of what is working with local businesses like yours). All in a conversational, easy to understand explanation of the details Chip is known for. You can review the information, then follow up with your questions via email, phone call, text, Zoom / Facetime or an in person meeting.
Note: Privacy is something we take seriously, and keeping the information you shared private is of utmost importance to us. We do not share any information with third parties. The minimum of information is shared with an insurance company to put together a detailed free quote and illustration for you.