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, Chung was hired at the Trust to bring services in-house and become a selfadministered plan.

“For the past 12 years, we’ve been self-administering the plan for the BCCA and regional construction associations, such as the Northern Regional Construction Association (NRCA),” Chung explains. “We administer health, 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 on confirmed, that it would cause a lot of stress. So they quickly determined that they needed to increase and promote access to their many mental health supports.

One significant change the Trust made was temporarily increasing the psychology benefit limits on their plans. The average benefits plan allows psychology 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 a mental health professional, they pay per visit and are reimbursed after submitting the claim to their benefits plan. With the MindBeacon partnership, the BCCAEBT removed the hurdle of em-

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ployees having to pay out-of-pocket and have seen an increase in usage of therapy.

“Whether they need three sessions or 10 sessions, it will be a one-time cost born by the Trust,” Chung says. “The employer or employee doesn’t have to pay a penny for that access.”

In addition to the two aforementioned initiatives, the Trust’s communications and marketing department provides ongoing mental health education and awareness of resources such as their employee and family assistance plan. The program is accessible for all employees and members of their households – not just their dependents. Chung says plenty of employees are in situations where they live in multigenerational and/or multi-family households consisting of grandparents, parents, children, aunts, uncles and cousins. The Trust recognizes and does their best to support varying family units.

The Trust also sponsors webinars put forward by NRCA, BCCA and the other regional construction associations. For example, if Scott Bone, CEO of NRCA, wanted to provide a webinar on mental health access, the Trust would sponsor it.

Chung says the construction industry can sometimes have a “machismo” factor to it, with people feeling uncomfortable asking for help. That is why the Trust wants to be part of the solution by helping employers and employees easily access the resources they offer.

“The NRCA has been very productive and involved,” Chung says, adding that the mental health mission began with the Builders Code established three years ago. The Code started as a way to increase diversity and the presence of women in construction, but quickly grew into discussions about mental health, bullying and workplace harassment.

Although the Trust started offering these initiatives during COVID-19, they know the need for mental health supports will be a lifelong requirement. According to the Canadian Health and Life Insurance Association, mental health claims have gone up 24 per cent at the end of 2020, which represents over $420 million across the country.

“In many ways, the industry sees this as a positive thing, because more people are seeking help,” Chung says. “Especially in construction, we are always encouraging people to access the plan and get access to the care and help they need.”

For more information about BCCAEBT benefit plans, visit bccabenefits.ca. l

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