More and more studies are showing the significance of rising health care costs in this country. Many employers are reacting by revising their insurance and benefit offerings to reflect this trend to compensate for increased costs.
How will these possible benefit reductions and increased benefit costs affect your insurance coverage this year? What about next year? What changes will it bring? What’s the solution?
Two words: Voluntary benefits.
Voluntary benefits can offer your company a solution for your employees, while not adding to the cost of your company, the perfect solution to keep your company competitive from a benefits standpoint.
Traditional medical insurance doesn’t cover every expense related to an illness, injury or death.
The bills and expenses continue to add up, especially if your employees stop working and lose income. How will they pay the deductibles or co-pays and other increasing medical costs not covered by your employer-sponsored insurance plan?
Voluntary insurance can help your employees prepare for these types of unanticipated expenses, as well as other out-of-pocket expenses. Most of all, these plans help take the worry away about how employees will pay medical and other everyday living expenses.
Voluntary Benefits products and services are usually fully paid by the employee, and feature convenient payroll deduction for premium payments. Additionally, many plans can be purchased through a flexible benefits plan allowing savings with pretax dollars, which is another great benefit that is growing in popularity.
Here are the types of plans most commonly offered:
Disability
Employees depend on their income to pay for housing, food, clothing, and their children’s education – all the necessities of life. For most employees, a disability means not only difficulty meeting these financial obligations but also increased out-of-pocket medical costs. Voluntary benefits disability plans offer a variety of affordable employee-paid disability income options to meet your company and your employees’ needs.
Cancer and Critical Illness
One in four people will face cancer in their lifetime. Medical advances have resulted in increased survival rates for specific diseases, but costs can still add up rapidly. Lengthy, expensive recovery periods can mean the loss of wages and an employee’s ability to pay for care and treatment. Even with the most generous employer-provided medical and disability insurance plans, workers need additional resources to help meet their financial needs.
Cancer Insurance pays lump-sum benefits that can help employees pay out-of-pocket expenses resulting from cancer treatment. Just as importantly, this product also pays an annual cancer-screening tests/wellness benefit to encourage employees to have regular screenings, improving their chance of survival if they do develop cancer. And you can select from several levels and plan options to help meet the needs of a diverse employee base.
Hospital Confinement Indemnity
Unfortunately when it comes to the current state of health insurance in the US, you must now offer your employees options that usually provide less value for the money.
Employers need an affordable solution to protect employees, stay competitive in attracting and retaining quality workers, and of course, remain profitable. Employees need more benefits choices than ever before.
Hospital Confinement Indemnity products can provide your employees the benefits they need without hurting your organization’s bottom line. And if you have or are considering a Health Savings Account (HSA) there are many plans that are HSA-compliant which can help you and your employees stretch benefit dollars, at no direct cost to you.
Legal Assistance
Employees lose productivity at work due to their own personal legal concerns, and those of their family. Whether it’s dealing with a speeding ticket, preparing a will, addressing collection matters, handling legal issues for children, medical matters, legal assistance programs provide the peace of mind for employees to address these issues in an affordable, and professional matter.
Employers provide these inexpensive employee paid programs to help employees effectively manage legal matters, reduce stress of legal matters, and protect themselves in this litigious society.
You can’t stop medical costs from rising. You can’t prevent gaps in coverage from occurring, but you can help your employees manage those costs and cover those gaps by providing them with additional options like those listed above.
Looking to Provide More Benefits at No Additional Cost?
Voluntary Benefits are an excellent solution to staying competitive in the areas of employee benefits without adding additional cost to your company.
Learn more about adding a voluntary benefits plan to your employee benefits strategy by getting in touch with us today.
