BCCA Employee Benefit Trust supports construction workers’ mental health The British Columbia Construction Association Employee Benefit Trust (BCCAEBT) says it’s about time that mental health receives the same level of recognition and importance as physical health. Established over 53 years ago, the BCCA Employee Benefit Trust is an initiative started by a group of employers that wanted to cover their employees that weren’t on a union benefits plan, according to Arthur Chung, chief executive officer of the Trust. As a result, they created a fund that paid out health expenses incurred by those employees and their families. In 2004, the fund became a health and welfare trust. Eventually, the British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA) passed on the management of the Trust to a handful of employee benefit firms. In 2009,
BCCA and regional construction asso-
One significant change the Trust
ciations, such as the Northern Regional
made was temporarily increasing the
Construction
(NRCA),”
psychology benefit limits on their plans.
Chung explains. “We administer health,
The average benefits plan allows psy-
Association
dental, and pooled benefits, which are group life insurance, accidental death, critical illness and disability. Things like that.” Chung says the goal of the Trust is to encourage employers to look at benefits not as a perk of the job or a cost, but as a necessary part of the total compensation package for employees to stay healthy and productive. It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure employees’ mental and physical health are looked after, and the BCCAEBT helps employers do that. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020, the Trust anticipated, and later
chology benefits from $300 to $500 per year, but the Trust bumped it up – with no cost to the employer or employees – to $2,000 a year. That’s almost four times the original allowance. “That’s a number we are flexible with,” Chung says. “If we see claims where people are starting to pay out of pocket, we’ll adjust it. It’s not a fixed support we are providing at this point.” Another initiative the Trust put forth is therapy via a partnership with MindBeacon, which offers internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT). However, the Trust is doing things a little differently than most benefits providers. Normally, when one visits
Chung was hired at the Trust to bring
on confirmed, that it would cause a lot
services in-house and become a self-
of stress. So they quickly determined
administered plan.
that they needed to increase and pro-
mitting the claim to their benefits plan.
mote access to their many mental health
With the MindBeacon partnership, the
supports.
BCCAEBT removed the hurdle of em-
“For the past 12 years, we’ve been self-administering the plan for the
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