health Picking the Best Benefits by: Christine Arnold, LandrumHR
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any employers today want to offer a robust package of employee benefits to their employees to remain competitive in the marketplace and entice and re-
tain high performing employees. What should you, as an employer,
You may be able to offer these additional coverages at little or no cost to you, as the employer. The employees will have the advantage of lower cost group rates and most plans are eligible for pretax payroll deductions through a cafeteria plan, if available.
consider when deciding what to offer, when to offer it, and who will be eligible? Let’s talk about the decisions that go into offering
Consult with a PEO (Professional Employer Organization) for cover-
health insurance. There are Affordable Care Act compliance issues
age and administration options or consult an insurance agent to get
that will come into play depending on the size of your organization.
quotes for group coverage from various insurance carriers in your
These compliance issues are beyond the scope of this article, so
region. Be prepared to provide the agent with a census of your em-
for purposes of this article, we will assume the employer has less
ployees. This is a list of employees along with their demographic
than 50 full time equivalent employees and is not subject to the
information.
employer mandate.
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Consider the cost
Which benefits will you offer? To whom will you offer them?
The insurance premiums and benefits are relational. The “richer�
First, consider what benefits you want to offer. Are you only inter-
the benefits, the more expensive the plan. The ease of access
ested in health insurance? Your employees may also be interested
and size of the network also play a role in the cost of a plan. You
in, and willing to pay for, other types of insurance such as dental,
can help keep the cost of premiums affordable by choosing a nar-
vision, long-term disability, short-term disability and life insurance.
rower network (usually an HMO) and increasing deductible and/or
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